FBR chairman says he’ll quit if found involved

Acceding to the fact that the tax collection figures announced on June 30 for the last fiscal year were not correct, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Salman Siddique on Saturday said he would step down if he was found responsible for tampering with the tax collection figures.
Talking to Pakistan Today, the FBR chairman said the Finance Ministry had initiated an investigation into the erroneously reported tax revenue to fix responsibility. “If I am found guilty, I will immediately step down”. If he leaves or is removed from the post, he would be the fourth top official to be disposed of within the last two weeks.
The domino effect started with the resignation of former State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Governor Shahid Kardar, removal of Auditor General of Pakistan Tanveer Ali Agha and resignation of Planning Commission Chief Economist Jaffer Qamar. Siddique had specially visited the SBP in Karachi last week to reconcile the tax collection data with the central bank as the FBR was claiming revenue collection of over Rs 1,590 billion while the SBP was adamant that the figures were lower.
Finally, an agreement was reached at Rs 1,550 billion collection. The tax collection target for the last fiscal was set at Rs 1,667 billion but was later revised to Rs 1,604 billion, and eventually the figure was revised to Rs 1,588 billion after the devastating floods in August. “Yes, the final revenue collection is Rs 1,550 billion for the last fiscal year,” Siddique said, adding that his claim of tax collection exceeded the target was erroneous as the collection remained short by Rs 38 billion.
He explained that the FBR had incorrectly reported the provisional gross figures collected by the taxmen including payment of refunds. “The actual figure is Rs 1,550 billion which is now the reconciled figures with the SBP and the Accountant General’s office,” he said. However, he denied that Rs 43 billion had been collected as advance tax from major taxpayers to bridge the shortfall.
“No advance tax was collected from the banks, oil and telecom companies”. He denied that the former SBP governor had resigned after refusing to accept the exaggerated FBR tax revenue figures. He rejected that the discrepancy in revenue figures would raise questions about the credibility of the government’s case while seeking revival of the suspended $11.3 billion standby arrangement facility from the International Monetary Fund.
However, he acknowledged that the slippage caused the fiscal deficit to edge up to 6.2 percent as against the revised target of 5.2 percent.