ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has expanded the category of officials required to publicly disclose their assets, a new regulatory step aimed at increasing transparency and reportedly taken to comply with an International Mone­tary Fund condition.

A key part of the new regulation makes the asset declarations of public servants accessible to the public. This will allow citizens to review a complete trail of an officer’s holdings from the point they join government service onward. The decision was announced on Thursday through an income tax not­i­fication SRO2263 that amends the ‘Sharing of Declaration of Assets of Civil Servants Rules, 2023’.

It significantly broadens the definition of a term “public servant” to include a wider range of government employees under the disclosure framework.

The term now includes officers in BPS-17 and above working for federal or provincial governments, as well as personnel in autonomous bodies, state-owned corporations and firms .

The only officials not covered by the new rule are those protected under an exemption listed in the National Accountability Ordinance of 1999.

Previously, the requirement was limited to a narrow definition of officials serving under the Civil Servants Act of 1973, which left a large number of public sector officers outside the reporting structure.

By bringing personnel across multiple layers of government and SOEs into a single disclosure structure, the authorities intend to create a more uniform standard of accountability.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2025