Reforms to improve tax collection system: minister

LAHORE
PUNJAB Finance Minister Dr Ayesha Ghaus Pasha has said that the Punjab government has developed an ambitious taxation and public financial management reforms road map which has been approved by the chief minister.
The objectives of the road map are to reform provincial tax collection system and to improve financial management of the government. The reforms programme aims at mobilising revenues by improving tax administration to stop leakage of taxes, broadening tax base and bringing greater transparency in the tax collection systems. Similarly, on the public financial management side, reforms have been planned to introduce modern financial management systems in the province, bringing in budgeting reforms to shift from annual, incremental approach to evidence based, medium-term and performance based budgeting.
She said another important component of reforms was the capacity building of government staff on public financial management. She expressed this during a donor coordination meeting to review the detailed implementation plan for taxation and public financial management reforms in Punjab. The meeting was chaired by Dr Ayesha Ghous Pasha, attended by senior member Board of Revenue, Yusuf Khan Finance Secretary, Ali Tahir Secretary Excise and Taxation, Raheel Siddiqui Chairperson Punjab Revenue Authority and other senior officials of the Punjab government. Mr Ben French DFID’s provincial representative, Omar Mukhtar Khan Governance Adviser DFID, Ms Irum Touquir World Bank Islamabad and Ms Catherine Froehline Representative of GIZ/German Embassy represented the Punjab Government’s development partners in the meeting. Dr Ayesha expressed her gratitude to development partners for committing to provide technical assistance to government on all areas identified in the reforms plan. She said that leadership in Punjab wanted to mobilise maximum resources without increasing tax rates or over-burdening the existing taxpayers, the idea here is to mobilise more resources by stopping leakages and broadening the tax base.
She expressed the hope that with support of its development partners, the Punjab government will be able to achieve a very ambitious tax collection target set in the budget estimate 2015-16. She said that the government was also strengthening the institutional capacity of Finance Department to make it a modern, 21st century department that would be able to efficiently serve all line departments of the Punjab. On behalf of the development partners, Mr Ben French assured the minister that they would provide maximum support to this home grown agenda of taxation and reforms in Punjab. First donor coordination meeting was held last month, in this workshop government’s reform plan was shared with its development partners, including DFID, World Bank and GIZ. It was decided that government would develop a detailed plan and implement it with the support of its development partners. The development partners were invited to select the areas in reform strategy that they would like to support.