ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has promoted five officers of Inland Revenue Service (IRS) to grade 22.
The Inland Revenue Wing of the FBR was created, combining the three domestic taxes; comprising Income Tax, Sales Tax and Federal Excise Duty, constitute about 90% of the Revenue collected by FBR. These taxes are not only similar in essence, but also are interdependent in practice and time tested international tenor vindicates the same.
“The promoted officers include Additional Secretary Azra Mustafa, Director General Training Lahore Sameera Yasin, Member Inland Revenue Tribunal Lahore Fiza Muzaffar, Chief Commissioner Sialkot Abdul Rehman Doga and Ashraf Khan Member operations” a well placed source at FBR told this scribe here on Saturday, adding that Director General Intelligence Lutfullah Virk had also been promoted to grade 22.
Ashraf Khan will look into Inland Revenue; Azra Mustfa will take care of matters pertaining to fiancé. Sameera Yasin will continue as DG Training Lahore while Abdul Rehman Dogar will elevated as member FBR, however, will not be allocated any wing.
IRS is facilitates the taxpayers with the provision of carrying through their tax matters in one organizational structure. It is conducive for the tax administration, as the access to the taxpayer’s data in respect of different domestic taxes is easily available.
As per bifurcation of responsibilities complaints of tax evasion and taxpayer’s grievance are dealt by Chiefs, I, II and III for their respective jurisdiction.
Matters pertaining to Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Departmental Accounts Committee (DAC) and external audit are dealt by Chief IR.I.
Monitoring of daily collections, refunds and filing of returns is monitored by Chief IR, I, II, III for their respective jurisdictions while Automation and e-filling is handled by Chief IR- III.
Similarly, in order to rationalize the work flow, compliance, enforcement, monitoring and recovery of taxes ensuring facilitation for the taxpayers in their respective areas of responsibilities, an equal number of RTOs and LTUs, seven offices have been placed under each Chief Inland Revenue, assisted by Secretary and Second Secretary.
The promoted officers are being hailed and felicitated but, the top management has promoted officers to grade 22 who have very short tenure of service left to retirement, therefore, they will not be able to contribute in improvement of the performance of the FBR. Abdul Rehman Dogar and Azra Mustafa will retire in June and November this year. Fiza Muzaffar will also taken be in FBR board but also she will retire this year. Only Ashraf Khan will continue service for a little bit longer tenure as he will retire in April next year. For the proper execution of pivotal important responsibilities delegated to IRS, these people might have been promoted long before so that they could have delivered in a befitting manner.
Since, IRS constitutes around 90% of the Revenue collected by FBR, there must be given some 15 posts of grade 22 to this wing, whereas only five officers have been promoted in principle, which are too short to get due and desired results.
