ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is already short of almost Rs 300 billion revenue collection target and the untimely decision of the caretaker government of changing the chairman has further aggravated the situation because it has perplexed the entire tax collection machinery.
This immature decision is costing huge loss to the national exchequer in terms of revenue collection in the last days of fiscal year as it has shattered the trust of the taxpayers as well as left the tax collection machinery without a clear cut direction.
“Normally, almost Rs 100 billion revenue is collected and deposited to the national exchequer by the tax collecting machinery in the last days of fiscal year; however, the unwise decision of change of chairman has stunned the entire machinery now,” a source told Customs Today.
As per routine matter, the source said that such decisions were taken with immediate effect but in the current decision, the new chairman would take charge of the FBR’s affairs from the beginning of new tax year July 1.
“In this situation, the sitting chairman is neither in a position to give any guidelines to the members and chief commissioners nor the later are ready to pay due heed his directives because with the issuance of his transfer orders members and chief commissioners also change their mood,” the source observed.
As the FBR is already short of revenue collection, therefore, the caretaker government should have not shattered the momentum of tax collection anyhow, the source said, adding that this order demonstrated the utmost immaturity on the part of the decision maker.
Therefore, the source said that the government should either delay the order or issued the order with immediate effect to enable the new chairman to take full command of the tax collecting authority.
The source recalled that previous government granted two months’ extensions in the service of even two retiring chairmen of the FBR in 2013 and 2017 both Ansar Javed and Dr Muhammad Irshad were retiring in the month April but the government in a bid to keep the momentum of revenue collection extended their service tenures for two months so that they could complete the revenue collection process.
