PM approached for reactivation of tax policy board

SOHAIL SARFRAZ

ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance Chairman Faiz Ullah Kamoka has approached Prime Minister Imran Khan to immediately reactivate the policy board of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to guide the tax authorities towards achieving the revenue collection target assigned for 2019-20.

A member of the FBR Policy Board told Business Recorder that the government should listen to the proposals of the members of the FBR Tax Policy Board under the current crisis-like situation, where the FBR is facing a massive shortfall.

The meeting should be convened immediately to guide the FBR for taking certain steps to document high net worth individuals, improve audit and increase revenue collection without burdening the existing taxpayers, the member of the FBR Policy Board added.

Only one meeting of the Policy Board was held during the tenure of former Minister for Finance Asad Umar.

“We have no clue, what has happened to the Policy Board and why the government is not contacting the Policy Board members in such a crisis-like situation in the FBR,” he added.

“The revenue leakages and increased corruption in the FBR’s field formations is alarming,” member of the FBR Policy Board stated. The FBR Policy Board was established under the FBR Act 2007. According to a letter of the chairman National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance addressed to the PM, the government has established a Policy Board of the FBR to provide guidance in matters relating to the vision, mission, and values of the board and it provides policy guidelines in framing fiscal policy and in achieving goals and targets. According to the FBR Policy Board rules, a meeting should be held at least once in each quarter of a financial year, but unfortunately not a single meeting has been conducted so far in the tenure of the PTI government (15 months) by the FBR Policy Board.

The PM should pass orders to the Chairman Policy Board Abdul Hafeez Sheikh to hold the board meetings regularly as per rues in the best interest of the country as well as government on priority basis, Faiz Ullah Kamoka said.

The finance minister is the chairman of the board, whereas ministers for commerce, textile, industries and privatization, are the ex-officio members along with chairmen of the Senate and National Assembly standing committees on finance and revenue. The FBR chairman is the secretary of the board.

Among the nominated members (in advisory capacity) were ministers, Abdul Razak Dawood and Hammad Azhar, Senator Kauda Babar, Syed Javed (IT professional), chairman NADRA and Abdullah Yousaf (former chairman FBR).

During the last meeting, it was decided that the Senate’s Standing Committee on Law and Justice shall be asked to review the FBR laws where criminal investigation agencies had an overlapping jurisdiction with the FBR so that the authority of the FBR may be ascertained.

The NADRA chairman was directed by the chair to start working on proposals for broadening of the tax base through the use of data already available at the NADRA database; the suggestions will be reviewed by the policy board in detail for further action.

Former chairman FBR was also directed by the chair to make detailed presentation on the audit and inspection system of the FBR and suggest improvements in the system.

The presentation will be first shared with the Minister of State for Revenue and later be brought to the Policy Board for further action.

In November 2018, Former Federal Information Minister Fawad Hussain Chaudhry, while addressing a press conference, stated that the government had decided to set up a Tax Policy Board (TPB), in line with Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) vision and a long standing demand of the business community.

He added that the FBR would only be required to collect taxes once the board had been established and would not take any policy decisions, though one would assume that as a member of the board, chairman FBR may provide valuable inputs as to the likelihood of meeting targets from any tax related decision taken by the board.