ISLAMABAD: The government is seeking parliamentary approval of the legislation against ‘benami’ transactions by December 2016.

A meeting, chaired by Minister of Finance Ishaq Dar, on Saturday to review FBR’s performance was informed.

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Nisar Mohammad Khan briefed the meeting about the strategy and measures being adopted for improvement in revenue collection and targets.

By the end of June 2016, tax revenue grew by more than 20 per cent and the FBR met the indicative target on tax collections with a small margin.

Tax measures include broadening the tax base, modernising the GST regime on goods and services with few exceptions in close coordination with the provinces; and establishing a tax policy research and analysis unit outside the FBR.

Other measures being taken for the tax administration reforms by the government include improving FBR’s access to third-party information; ensuring data matching between domestic taxes and customs to identify non-compliant taxpayers and minimise under-declarations; accelerating the implementation of risk-based auditing with a focus on high net worth individuals and large companies and building a centralised fiscal cadastre to facilitate market value-based real estate tax.

Emphasis is also on putting in place additional governance and anti-corruption measures at the FBR and reducing the outstanding stock of tax refund claims to no more than a three-month flow.

Mr Dar asked the FBR team to gear up its efforts to achieve the revenue target set in the federal budget 2016-17.

Over the last three years, the tax revenue-to-GDP ratio has increased by 2.4pc of GDP to 12.4pc in fiscal year 2015-16 – the highest level since 1999.

Despite the progress, the full potential of tax system has still to be realised and requires generating additional resources to step up critical physical infrastructure, human capital, and social expenditures.

To this end, the government will refrain from granting concessions, exemptions and any form of amnesty, enhance tax policy measures, and accelerate administrative reforms aimed at broadening the tax base and modernising the tax system.

Doing business reform

Chairing another meeting, the finance minister asked authorities to identify specific actions that are required to implement this year’s “doing business” reform strategy of the government.

The reform measures are being taken to cover all the 10 doing business indicators which include: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering a property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts and resolving insolvency.

These indicators form part of the World Bank’s doing business criteria. According to World Bank’s Doing Business 2016 report, Pakistan’s ranking fell by two places to 138 in 2016 compared to a year ago.

Finance Secretary Waqar Masood Khan briefed the finance minister on the proposed way forward to improve the country’s ranking.

Stressing the need to take all stakeholders on board, Mr Dar directed that every effort should be made to facilitate foreign and domestic investors and businessmen.

Pakistan was increasingly being identified globally as a business- and investor-friendly country,

he said, adding that the country must capitalise on the improvement in the economy as well as security situation.

Published in Dawn October 16th, 2016