The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will finalise its resource mobilisation strategy to collect Rs 1.952 trillion tax collection target for the current fiscal year at the Chief Commissioners Conference.
The FBR tax collection target experts say it is unrealistic as FBR is facing a shortfall of Rs26 billion against the tax target of Rs110 billion in the first month of July for current fiscal year. The participants of the conference would consider the performance of Centralized Registration Office (CRO) and each LTU and RTO keeping in view the information provided to them for broadening of tax base with certain deadlines.
Chairman FBR Salman Siddique would chair the meeting while chief commissioners of Large Taxpayers Units (LTUs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) would attend the meeting as well. The senior tax officials would be given targets for broadening the tax base, keeping in view the target assigned by the government.
Automation of tax machinery, Taxpayers Audit Management System would be reviewed and necessary steps would be approved for 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 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 amendments and new tax provisions introduced in tax laws through Finance Act 2011 and their implementation mechanism would be sorted out for revenue realization. Broadening of tax base and netting new taxpayers especially in the direct taxes side was expected to be set as priority for fiscal year 2011-12.
The conference would review the tax collectors performance during the last fiscal year 2010-11 and the strategy for tax collection would be finalized for 2011-12 based on experiences in the last fiscal year. To bridge the gap between tax withheld and deposited in the national exchequer by the withholding agents of 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 review the total arrear stocks of income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty and recommendations for reduction in arrear stocks 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 conference would also examine in detail the number of filers and non-filers of sales tax returns based on PRAL data disseminated by FBR, demand created by tax collectors and collection made in accordance with data. Moreover, a strategy for proper dealing with non-filers, short filers and nil filers would also be finalized for 2011-12.
