Working Groups Set to Finalize Recommendations on FBR’s Digitalization

The second meeting of the Task Force on Digitalization of Federal Board Revenue (FBR) was held today at FBR Headquarters which was chaired by Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Ali Pervez Malik and co-chaired by DG C41, Major General Syed Ali Raza. The meeting was also attended by FBR Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial, Members and other senior officers of the Board along with Task Force members including, among others, Ghazi Akhtar from Lotte Akhtar Beverages Ltd, Javed Ashraf from NADRA and Fareed Zafar from LUMS while Asif Peer from Systems Ltd, Amir Malik, CEO PRAL, Waqas Ul Hasan and Tania Aidrus joined virtually. In his opening remarks, the State Minister for Finance said that the Task Force is mandated to come up with practicable recommendations to transform FBR into a modern and digitalized organization to achieve sustained growth in national revenues. He also welcomed Javed Ashraf from NADRA as the newest member of the Task Force. On the occasion, Conveners of the Working Groups, designated in the previous meeting, gave separate presentations along with their initial findings on their assigned area/TORs. Starting off, Asif Peer gave a presentation on the restructuring of PRAL focusing on its governance structure, talent & capabilities, working model, and technology. He also presented the analysis and initial findings to turn PRAL into a high-performing organization. Dr Javed Ashraf gave his Group’s presentation on how to retrieve and integrate data from relevant organizations to develop a systematic and organized data profile to identify potential taxpayers. His presentation also suggested short, medium and long-term recommendations to achieve the desired objectives. This was followed by Ghazi Akhtar’s presentation on supply chain automation and Track & Trace System (TTS) which, among others, laid emphasis on utilizing the already available data to bring wholesalers into the tax net as well as make TTS more efficacious and operative to effectively collect due taxes from the relevant sectors. Tania Aidrus gave a presentation on the last TOR i.e. trade data sharing interface with trading partners wherein it was stated that the true value and quantity of trade data is not captured in the Customs system of WEBOC/PSW. She also presented her Group’s initial analysis. The minister appreciated the initial findings and recommendations of the Working Groups. He emphasized the need to harvest the already available data to identify potential taxpayers and bring them under the tax net for enhanced revenue collection and broadening of the tax base. He was of the view that improving the visibility of data integration would bring transparency to the system. He also directed to invite representatives from the Ministries of Foreign Affairs & Commerce, SECP, and State Bank of Pakistan in the next meeting. FBR chairman called for enabling FBR to optimally utilize the IT services of PRAL by transforming the latter into an efficient entity. He stressed focusing on improving other areas along with digitizing FBR. He said that cleansing of retrieved data is also necessary to make it more actionable. He expressed optimism that FBR is committed to enhancing revenue collection through the implementation of data automation and other innovative solutions. The forum decided that all the Working Groups would further firm up their initial findings and submit the final recommendations pertaining to their relevant area(s) in the next meeting of the Task Force which will be then presented to the prime minister for their implementation.