ISLAMABAD: The international survey agency has blamed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for overburdening the taxpaying sectors due to its failure to reform and broaden the tax base.

“FBR does not conduct sector-based surveys and studies to assess the ground realities, and the fact is that there is a visible trust deficit between the FBR against the taxpayers as well as the potential taxpayers,” Abdul Sattar Babar, head of the Pakistan chapter of Ipsos — a multinational market research and consulting firm having its headquarters in Paris, said here on Thursday.

At the launch of the third report on “Pakistan Cigarette Market Assessment 2024”, he said the Track & Trace (T&T) system looks like a joke to penalise the regulated sectors.

He said that the T&T has failed to produce the desired results, and the FBR has not yet compiled a report on the reasons for its failure.

Published in Dawn, May 10th, 2024