FBR trying hard for establishing PRS
MUHAMMAD ALI
KARACHI (July 27 2009): The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is striving to establish Pakistan Revenue Service (PRS), which is one of the conditions of International Monetary Fund (IMF) to acquire the third tranche of the $7.6 billion standby loan.

Sources told Business Recorder on Saturday that the board has given the deadline of September 15 to Establishment Division for its constitution, and added that summary in this regard has been moved to the Prime Minister for approval.

Following the past poor experience pertaining to proposal for Inland Revenue Service (IRS), the FBR has decided to recruit fresh blood for the purpose, sources said.

They said that officials from customs and income tax groups have option to join 'PRS group' or continue the service in their respective groups. Furthermore, they said, the board could also exercise the power under section 10 of establishment rules to depute the officers from any group to PRS for three years.

"FBR is of the view that the existing income tax group was the driving cluster in the tax department; hence no new recruitment would be made in future," they added. They said that PRS is aimed to enhance revenue collection to create positive impact on tax-to-GDP ratio, which was posted at 9 percent in outgoing fiscal year.

They said the taxpayers are presently obligated to enrol in both sales tax and income tax departments, separately, to pay off their tax liabilities, while PRS would simplify the procedure by issuing single identity for both levies and would also discourage tax evasion. However, the officials from customs group are pessimist in this regard, and said that it could not provide any positive results unless the records of both systems would not reconciled in an effective manner.

They expressed apprehension over the issue, saying that records related to sales tax are not properly maintained, which creates difficulties for taxmen to share relevant information with other tax offices and urged the board to take remedial measures in this connection before introducing PRS.

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