The government is under pressure from the international financial institutions to assess the performance of tax mandarins on the basis of key performance indicators (KPIs) this year which is strongly resisted by the officers of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
An official source said the government, under pressure from FBR officers, wanted to do away the assessment of taxmen on KPIs basis, which were floated in April this year. However, on warning from the donors, the government has decided to implement the new system from this year and the first assessment will be made in July.
It is important to mention that the FBR implemented the job description and KPIs for all tax officials in Grade 17 and above up to the position of chief commissioners. These KPIs were implemented on the recommendations of the Tax Reform Commission (TRC) which found the performance of an overwhelming majority of the senior officials above average.
The KPIs were drafted by TRC with the help of German development agency GTZ. The assessment will make quite clear the performance of senior taxmen in clawing new taxpayers in the tax net. The first assessment on the basis of performance of last quarter of the current fiscal year will bring in new facts and it will help improve overall service structure in the future.
The KPIs and job description were implemented for chief commissioners, commissioner inland revenue, commissioner withholding tax, commissioner broadening of tax base, additional commissioner enforcement, additional commissioner withholding, additional commissioner audit, additional commissioner legal, additional commissioner human resource management, additional commissioner information processing, deputy commissioner enforcement, deputy commissioner audit, deputy commissioner legal, assistant commissioner enforcement, assistant commissioner audit and assistant commissioner legal.
The KPI of the chief commissioner included achievement of collection targets as set by FBR (Income Tax, Sales Tax and FED), increase returns filing from registered taxpayers, (percentage wise increase over previous financial year), collection of undisputed current tax payable (demand created over the year), collection of undisputed arrear tax payable, LTU: Monitor detection of tax evasion cases, RTO: monitor detection of tax evasion cases, disposal of audit cases by zonal commissioners/additional commissioners, examination of audit reports, orders, corporate cases non-corporate cases, proportion of cases decided in favour of the department at first appeal.
