ISLAMABAD: The president of the Federal Revenue Board (FBR), Shabbar Zaidi, set up three high-level advisory committees on Friday to make proposals on the restructuring of the fiscal authority to make the reforms a more exclusive exercise.
The committees were formed three days after FBR chief commissioners and members of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) met with Zaidi to demand the withdrawal of the proposed measures to renew the tax authority within two days.
To comply with the demands of senior IRS officials, the FBR president has entrusted the committees to present their recommendations before November 18. However, the president did not form a committee for the customs group that appears to be happy with the government offers of an additional 38 BPS. -21 posts.
According to the president's order, the Karachi-based advisory committee will be headed by the Chief of the Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) Dr. Faiz Illahi Memon with four members, including principal commissioners Amir Ali Khan Talpur, Dr. Aftab Imam, Shahid Iqbal Baloch and Badruddin Ahmad Quraishi.
The Lahore-based committee will be headed by chief commissioner Syed Nadeem Hussain Rizvi with the two-member chief commissioners, Asim Majid Khan and Ahmad Shuja Khan.
The committees based in Rawalpindi-Islamabad will be headed by the Director General of Intelligence and Research Asim Ahmad with three members, including the principal commissioners: Dr. Bashirullah Khan, Dr. Shamsul Hadi and Muhammad Naseer Butt.
The president has also approved the terms of reference for the committees. The committees have the task of seeking the future status of the tax authority under the federal government as an attached department or semi-autonomous or fully autonomous agency.
Other issues that the committees will consider are related to hiring, retention, capacity, remuneration, financial autonomy, organizational structure and work process.
It clearly shows that the committees investigating RBA reforms have not done their proper task and gave a presentation on the proposed reforms without seeking the opinion of interested parties.
The Secretariat of the Prime Minister led by Prime Minister Imran Khan on October 3 called a meeting to approve the proposed structure of the Fiscal Authority of Pakistan and the field formations.
According to the reform measures that the government is considering, it has been proposed to abolish the positions of the 24 main commissioners who head the regional and LTU tax offices throughout the country. As a result, 174 commissioners will be required to inform members of Inland Revenue operations directly, which seems impossible. In addition, the proposed reform measures could reflect the strength of the cadre and the field formations.
To involve all those interested in the process, the FBR president has wished that all the heads of these committees make sure to involve the officials who fall in BS-16 and lower scales and other cadres that fall under their jurisdictions to that your contribution can also be obtained and incorporated into the recommendations framed by these committees.
Published on Dawn, November 9, 2019
Source: https://www.dawn.com/news/1515757/three-committees-constituted-for-restructuring-fbr