ISLAMABAD: Haroon Akhtar Khan, Special Assistant to Prime Minister on Revenue, Tuesday inaugurated a control room-cum-operational room in the FBR Headquarters to coordinate activities in FBR’s field formations across the country.
The control room-cum-operational room, which is fitted with communication and connectivity gadgets, will facilitate and educate the traders about the voluntary tax compliance scheme, which has been launched after approval of the Parliament, said a statement issued by FBR. Member Operations Dr Muhammad Irshad and other senior officials of FBR were also present on the occasion.
Later, Haroon was briefed by the Member Operations on various monitoring and control mechanisms put in place to coordinate efforts for facilitating and educating the traders and motivating them to make full use of the voluntary tax compliance scheme.
The special assistant was informed that all Chief Commissioners of Regional Tax Offices had already been instructed not to issue any notice to a person who becomes part of this scheme, without the approval of FBR Headquarters.
To make the scheme successful and to facilitate the traders’ community, focal persons and sub-focal persons had also been appointed in all Regional Tax Offices (RTOs), while informative and explanatory material about the scheme had also been made ready.
Addressing the officers on the occasion, Haroon Akhtar Khan exhorted the officers and staff of FBR to make all-out efforts to make the scheme successful. He said the scheme offered a rare and golden opportunity to the traders to become part of the tax net and do their business with ease and comfort and without any fear of being audited for the next four years.
Haroon instructed the staff at the control room to keep close liaison with the field formations and work diligently to address any issue hampering a smooth implementation of the scheme. He expected a large number of traders of the country to be benefiting from the scheme because of the incentives and advantages it offered them for documenting their businesses. He also asked the Operations Wing to instruct all Regional Tax Offices and field formations to hold regular meeting with the representatives of All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajraan and the local Tax Bar Associations.
