ISLAMABAD: The newly formed Tariff Policy Board (TPB) on Thursday decided to assess the impact of revenue measures taken in previous fiscal years in order to finalise new proposals for the upcoming budget.

The TPB meeting was chaired by its chairman, Ad­­viser to the Prime Minister on Commerce Razak Daw­o­­od. It was agreed to rationalise the current tariff regime by analysing the impact as­­sessment of different relief measures taken earlier.

An official announcement after the meeting said that multiple sessions of the TPB and its sub-committee would be held to finalise proposals well in time.

In the meeting, custom tariff related proposals were discussed. The meeting also discussed the economic impact of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and deliberated upon ways and means to avert financial losses to businesses.

Reshuffle in FBR

Meanwhile, the government has tran­s­­­­ferred and posted 28 top tax officers at a time when the Federal Board of Revenue is struggling to minimise revenue shortfalls amid Covid-19.

Among those, who were transferred, include Direc­tor General Customs Intelli­g­­ence Muhammad Zahid, who unearthed a scam of containers duty-free clearances at Torkham and Chaman border stations.

The chief collector of Quetta was transferred, but the chief collector north with supervision role on Torkham border remain untouched in the reshuffling. The government has yet to post member customs operation who was removed in the wake of the unearthing of containers scams.

An official source told Dawn that all transferred were made on the direction of Finance Adviser Dr Hafeez Shaikh. It was an unprecedented move ahead of preparing budget for next year amid lockdown.

Published in Dawn, May 1st, 2020