ISLAMABAD: The government has constituted a 5- member subgroup to remove bottlenecks in sharing of tax data and analysis between Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and National Database Registration Authority (NADRA). The decision to this effect was taken by the prime minister’s advisor Abdul Hafeez Shaikh during a meeting of FBR policy board held here on Thursday.
FBR chairman, Javed Ghani, briefed the Adviser on measures taken and future course planned to improve skills and competence of its staff by providing different in-house and foreign training to improve managerial competence and adopt a culture of performance based incentives including promotions.
He also briefed the Adviser on the work being done on the IRIS (software) side to consolidate various application platforms into one to improve efficiency and performance. The Chairman further informed that a technologically advanced sales tax registration verification mechanism is introduced whereby officers with tablets will be sent to capture real time information and pictures including GPS coordinates of businesses requiring verification. Details of data sharing arrangements agreed to by 12 other organizations with FBR were also discussed in the meeting.
The Adviser asked to establish a link between NADRA and FBR for data sharing and data analytics. He created a subgroup of members to point out and sort the difficulties that are hindering the progress on the data sharing issue between the two organizations. This subgroup consists of Hammad Azhar, Dr. Ishrat Hussain, Faiz Kamoka, FBR chairman and NADRA chairman.
The subgroup will share its report with the chairman in a week. The Adviser took a special notice of the difficulties the traders are facing due to stoppage of containers at the Torkham Border. Member customs informed that necessary steps have been taken and the issue will be resolved within the coming weeks.
Syed Javed shared his recommendations on PRAL and told that CEO PRAL has been appointed. The next meeting of the policy Board will be held by the end of this month and the ToRs of the policy Board will be presented for approval. Mr.Hammad Azhar and Mr.Abdullah Yousaf shall prepare the said ToRs.