The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will finalise its resource mobilisation strategy to collect Rs1.952 trillion as its tax collection target for the current fiscal year at the Chief Commissioners Conference on August 4. FBR Chairman Salman Siddique would chair the meeting while chief commissioners of Large Taxpayers Units (LTUs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) would be attending it. The senior tax officials would be given targets for broadening the tax base, keeping in view the target assigned by the government.
The conference would review the total arrears stock of income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty and recommendations for reduction in arrears stock of all taxes would also be agreed upon. Furthermore, the future status and collection mechanism of the Federal Excise Duty on Franchises would be discussed in the conference. The automation of tax machinery, Taxpayers Audit Management System would be reviewed and necessary steps would be approved for the next fiscal year.
Update on cleansing of the National Tax Number (NTN) Master index would be presented in the conference and a future action plan for task completion is also expected to be approved. The conference would review the performance of Centralised Registration Office (CRO) and each LTU and RTO, keeping in view the information provided to them for broadening of tax base with a certain deadline.
The conference is also expected to settle the issues of Human Resource Development, promotions, transfers and postings in LTUs and RTOs. According to the agenda, the Chief Commissioners Conference would discuss in detail the amendment and new tax provisions introduced in tax laws through Finance Act 2011 and their implementation mechanism would be sorted out for revenue realisation. The broadening of tax base and netting new taxpayers especially in the direct taxes side was expected to be set as priority for the fiscal year 2011-12.
The conference would review the tax collectors’ performance during the fiscal year 2010-11 and the strategy for tax collection would be finalised for 2011-12 based on experiences from the last fiscal year. To bridge the gap between tax withheld and deposited in the national kitty by the withholding agents of the income tax with proper application of provisions of tax laws, the conference would approve measures for strict monitoring of withholding agents of sales tax and income tax.
The conference would also examine in detail the numbers of filers and non-filers of sales tax returns based on PRAL data disseminated by the FBR, demand created by the tax collectors and collection made in accordance with data and pendency. Moreover, a strategy for proper dealing with non-filers, short filers and nil filers would also be finalised for 2011-12.
