ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is planning to give extensive briefing to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif for obtaining approval for bringing procedural changes in tax laws with an aim to facilitate taxpayers.
“Yes, we will give briefing to PM on Friday (today),” senior official sources in FBR confirmed.
Federal Minister for Finance, Revenue and Statistics division held hectic meetings in FBR this week to review performance of the tax collection machinery.
Finance Minister gave examples of Turkey and stated in the meeting that their tax-to-GDP ratio went up to 26 percent within few years from level of 9 percent as they opened up facilitation centres in thousands in all over the country at time of filing tax returns.
“The filing of tax returns resulted into increased tax revenues because they gathered information and utilized it in proper manner,” said the official.
FBR is facing a challenging task for achieving the desired tax collection target of Rs 2475 billion against a collection of Rs 1936 billion in last financial year, requiring a growth of over 28 percent.
“Such a high-level growth in revenue collection requires political will of the ruling elites in order to get the desired results,” said the official sources.
