ISLAMABAD: Tax Reform Commission’s (TRC) high powered committee Thursday discussed various strategic measures to promote tax culture and reduce the size of undocumented economy in the country.
The meeting of committee was presided over by Special Assistant to Prime Minister, Senator Haroon Akhtar Khan.
Among others, it was attended by Chairman Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Dr. Muhammad Irshad, Member TRC committee Syed Masood Ali Naqvi and other members of the FBR board, official sources said.
The committee discussed various proposals for reducing the size of undocumented economy in the country. Matters pertaining to promote use of Information Technology (IT) in the FBR, evaluation of performance and matters related to appellate forums also came up to discussion during the meeting.
The committee also deliberated on various proposals for conducting electronic monitoring of the production of tobacco and mapping of retail sales. It was decided to make audit more effective and also discussed the ways to make the tax laws more easy.
It was pertinent to mention here that for simplification of tax laws the board has already invited proposals from stakeholders in order to curtail the complexity and rigors associated with tax laws. The stakeholders have been asked to submit their proposals by March 15, 2017.
On the occasion, Chairman FBR distributed newly published tax booklets to the members of TRC which contain detailed information about the FBR laws. It may be recalled that TRC was formed back in October 2014 to upgrade the taxation system and to address tax-related issues of general public.
The commission was formed to review the direct and indirect taxes; customs tariffs; the autonomy and administrative structure of FBR and development of a border force to deal with smuggling, besides improving the tax to GDP ratio to boost the economy.
