Committee formed to iron out FBR-Nadra differences

ISLAMABAD: Government on Thursday constituted a committee to solve issues that hinder data sharing between the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra), while seeking policy intervention from ministries to implement single window operation for trade facilitation.

A subgroup of members was constituted to sort out the difficulties that are hindering the progress on the data sharing issue between the FBR and Nadra. The subgroup was led by Minister for Industries Hammad Azhar.

Sources said the FBR is reluctant to share the data of taxpayers with the Nadra. The income tax law bars data sharing.

The data is sensitive and its mishandling could hurt Pakistan’s information exchange agreement with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, said the sources.

“The FBR did share data of unregistered 100,000 taxpayers with Nadra in the past but that didn’t yield any positive result on tax revenue,” an official said, requesting anonymity.

“The income tax law will have to be amended if the government insists on link building.”

Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Hafeez Shaikh approved directives to ministries to finalise policy intervention by next week, appoint focal persons and other officials for Pakistan single window (PSW) company as per relevant law, rules and guidelines of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).

PSW is an ICT-based national single window system in Pakistan. NSW is a facility that allows parties involved in trade and transport to lodge standardised information and documents at a single-entry point to fulfill all import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements.

The fifth meeting of the steering committee on PSW was told the PSW Bill 2020 had been introduced in the parliament.

The modified PC-I has been approved by the Central Development Working Party.

The PSW company has been incorporated and the hiring process for filling up the top positions has been initiated.

The meeting was informed that a development team was working on to roll out the first phase of the PSW system in the current financial year and in this regard negotiations are underway with Nadra, SECP and 1-Link for information exchange.

Meanwhile, FBR chairman briefed the adviser on the efforts the institute has been making to improve the abilities and expertise of its human resource and on the progress of the automation drive of FBR/Customs.

The meeting of the FBR policy board was updated of measures taken and future course planned to improve skills and competence of its staff by providing different in-house and foreign trainings to improve managerial competence and adopt a culture of performance based incentives including promotions.

The adviser was informed of the work being done on the IRIS (software) side to consolidate various application platforms into one to improve efficiency and performance.

The FBR chairman said a technologically advanced sales tax registration verification mechanism has been introduced whereby officers with tablets would be sent to capture real time information and pictures, including GPS coordinates of businesses requiring verification.

Details of data sharing arrangements agreed to by 12 other organisations with FBR were also discussed in the meeting.

Member customs told the meeting that necessary steps have been taken to resolve issues related to stoppage of containers at the Torkham border within the coming weeks.