ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar has appreciated FBR’s performance, despite the challenges of reduced oil prices, drop in commodity prices and low inflation faced by it.
Addressing the Chief Commissioner’s Conference, the minister commended the FBR on increasing its revenue collection by 33 percent and increasing the tax to GDP ratio from 8.4 percent to 9.45 percent during the last two years. The minister emphasized the importance of revenue generation in national development and urged the FBR to do utmost efforts to achieve revenue target for the current fiscal year.
The minister said simplification of procedures for filing tax returns was important to facilitate and encourage prospective tax payers and expanding the tax net.
We need to focus on this aspect as much as possible, he said. The Finance Minister also dilated briefly on the economic turnaround achieved by the present government. He said the government through a sustained reforms process had proved all economic pundits wrong who had predicted that Pakistan’s default was imminent. He said international rating agencies were now praiseworthy of Pakistan’s economic performance and international financing institutions had been re-engaged. He said Pakistan of 2015 was completely different from the Pakistan of 2013. From being a merely two tranche country we have come all the way and undertaken seven reviews with the IMF. The 8th Review will commence in a week’s time. The Minister said we wish to consolidate our economic gains and move forward towards the goal of economic prosperity. He emphasized that all political parties in the country should unite on the Charter of economy as he had been advocating from time to time. We should rise above all other considerations for economic good of the country, Dar remarked
Earlier in his introductory remarks, the Chairman FBR, Tariq Bajwa welcomed the Finance Minister to the Conference being attended by Chief Commissioners from all over the country. He gave a brief overview of FBR’s performance. Individual presentations were made by Member (Inland Revenue Operations), Member (Legal), Member (Taxpayer Audit), Member (Counting), Member (IT) and Member (FATE). The focus of this conference was to learn from last year’s experience and devise a strategy for current financial year. The issues like handling of court cases, broadening of tax base, effective utilization of data, facilitation and education of taxpayers, motivation of FBR’s workforce, increasing numbers of tax filers, making sales tax registration easier and localized were thoroughly discussed.
SAPM on Revenue Division, Haroon Akhtar, and senior officials of the Ministry of Finance also attended the conference.
