ISLAMABAD: As the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) chairman is set to retire by the end of this month, the government has stepped up efforts to appoint a new head, with several senior officers in the run for the top slot, Dawn learnt on Thursday.

The current FBR chairman, Asim Ahmad, was appointed by the PML-N-led coalition government on April 27 last year and will retire on July 30.

High-ups in the FBR believe that a delay in appointing the top tax officer might cause uncertainty within the tax department, leading to revenue bleeding on a daily basis.

Therefore, the government may give a look-after charge to a senior official until the appointment of a regular chairperson.

Sources said that the names of five officers were under consideration by the finance ministry for the post of FBR’s new head, including two officers from the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) and three from the Customs Group (CG).

As for the IRS, the two potential candidates are Nadeem Rizvi, serving as FBR’s member administration, and Zubair Tiwana, member operation.

On the Customs side, the potential candidates are Director General Customs Intelligence Faiz Ahmed, Member Customs Policy Suraiya Ahmed Butt and Member Customs Operation Mukarram Jah Ansari.

However, interviews with top government officials show that there was another proposal to consider a potential candidate from the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS). The potential candidates whose names are in circulation in the government circle are federal secretaries Rashid Mahmood Langrial, Ali Raza Bhutta, Sualeh Faruqi and Dr Kazim Niaz.

An FBR source told Dawn that the government had almost finalised a two-pronged strategy to run affairs of the tax administration.

According to one strategy, the finance minister might give the look-after charge to Nadeem Rizvi. However, another proposal is to appoint a PAS officer to run the FBR affairs during the caretaker set-up.

Another source said Mr Dar would appoint the FBR chairman from among those officers who worked with him directly or indirectly, especially from the tax department.

FBR officials previously reacted strongly to the appointment of a junior officer from the tax department or the appointment of a PAS officer as the tax agency’s chairman.

The government has projected a revenue collection target of Rs9.415tr for the current fiscal year compared to the revised collection of Rs7.2tr in the previous fiscal year, showing an increase of Rs2.219tr, or 30pc.

This will be a challenging target to achieve in the current fiscal year.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2023