ISLAMABAD: A World Bank mission will soon review Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) reform programmed launched under tax component of the Trust Fund for Accelerated Growth and Revenue (TAGR).
Sources said that the mission would visit Pakistan several times between September and October 2018 to review implementation of the tax component and Recipient Executed Component (RETF) of the TAGR. All these technical assistance missions will be led by Raul F Junquera Varela (task team leader for tax component, lead public sector specialist), Charles Blanco (task team leader for RETF, senior public-sector specialist), and Muhammad Waheed (Co-TTL for tax component and RETF, senior economist).
The mission will appraise the new government of the completed and ongoing activities, as well as discuss their priorities for fiscal year 2018-2019. These missions will focus on the following work streams: (i) Tax Policy. Support the FBR in the development of a Medium-Term Revenue Strategy (MTRS) and tax gap analysis at the federal level; (ii) Tax Audit. Support on risk-based audit and compliance program, oversee the introduction and automation of risk based audit and delivery of further training and a phase 3 on mentoring; (iii) Customs. Field work and delivery of the assistance program in risk management, post clearance audit, Customs valuation, update of the Customs Act and Customs strategic planning; (iv) human resource assessment of FBR for Inland Revenue and Customs; (v) Information and Communication Technology. Focus on monitoring the implementation of the IT strategy, corresponding action plan and monitoring the implementation of the recommendations; and (vi) Business Process Mapping (BPM). Monitoring implementation of recommendations included in the BPM report for Inland Revenue.
The tax program implementation support mission also includes follow-up activities for the upgrading of the tax administration data centers to strengthen the FBR’s capacity in information technology, and building FBR’s fiscal research and tax policy analysis capacity under the Recipient Executed Component (RETF) Project.
