ISLAMABAD: The World Bank’s project to help Federal Board of Revenue to set up a tax intelligence unit and a market monitoring and intervention unit to develop the Board’s capacity to carry out sound tax policy analysis has been delayed for more than a year.
The World Bank is expected to extend the completion date up to June 2019. The World Bank-assisted project aimed at strengthening tax systems and building tax policy analysis capacity.
The $4.9 million project is part of the Department for International Development (DFID) and consists of two components: updating tax administration data centres to strengthen FBR’s capacity in information technology and building FBR’s fiscal research and tax policy analysis capacity.
The delay is attributed to the fact that the project was initially not included in the public sector development programme (PSDP) 2017-18 at the time of budget approval in June 2017.
A report of the World Bank says all the issues have now been solved and the budget for the project has been allocated by the government, allowing the opening of the ‘Revolving Fund Account’ and enabling the project to commence disbursement.
