The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is planning to place dozens of senior officials, allegedly involved in corruption, on the Admin Pool. According to sources, the FBR has prepared a list of alleged corrupt officials from both the Inland Revenue Service and the Pakistan Customs Service, and the notification of their placement in the Admin Pool is expected to be issued in the coming days. The FBR had prepared these lists of officials before the budget, but the notification could not be issued due to the budget preparation exercise, the sources said. This will be the second major shuffle within two months, where senior officials, including Grade-20 officials, may be placed on the Admin Pool. Just before Eid, the FBR had suspended two officials, a Deputy Collector and an Inspector, for wrongly processing a refund case worth over Rs 800 million.

This was the second major refund case where the FBR had suspended senior officials. On April 26, 2024, the FBR had transferred almost all key members, including the Member Inland Revenue (Policy) and the Member Customs (Operations), to the Admin Pool of the Board. The FBR had also transferred and posted the top 22 Inland Revenue officials from BS-20 to BS-22, including 13 key members/director generals of the Board and two chief commissioners Inland Revenue. Additionally, the FBR had transferred 14 senior officials of Customs, from BS-20 to BS-22, including the Director-General of Customs (Intelligence). The total number of transfers and postings of senior tax officials of the FBR stood at 49.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan