ISLAMABAD: New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) Additional Collector Nisar Ahmed Phularwal said that after the directions of Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO), a desk has been established at the airport comprising officers of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), Customs and Immigration departments to facilitate passengers.
Nisar Phularwal, during an exclusive interview with Customs Today, said that the new government is urgently needed to focus on economy.
He said that Pakistan Customs and Inland Revenue Service (IRS) must work separately.
“There should be two boards i.e. Board of Customs and Board of IRS,” he added.
He said that the Revenue Division can make separate boards of both the departments. To make two boards of the said departments, there is no need to make any amendment into the constitution. Nisar Ahmad added.
The additional collector said that IRS generated vacancies on very large scale and the ratio between Pakistan Customs and IRS is 1-10 like the Customs has only one Member; whereas IRS has 10 officials of Member Customs level, which increases IRS’ influence against the Customs.
Nisar continued that the IRS officers got promotions rapidly whereas the Customs’ promotions have been blocked. The additional collector said that IRS mostly focuses on withholding tax (WHT) while they should focus on income tax (IT) so that enough revenue could be generated but for this purpose, IRS has to make efforts to become a separate board.
Nisar Phularwal said that there is shortage of staff at newly-built state-of-the-art airport. He added that all the Customs Superintendents currently working will retire by year 2021 so new staff should be recruited.
Answering a question, the additional collector said that he is focusing on Indian smuggled items because smuggling of these goods has increased during the last few years.
