ISLAMABAD, April 21: The government has decided to merge various departments at the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) headquarter aiming to remove several duplications in the existing charter of duties.

Official sources told Dawn on Monday that during the drive the reform team has also identified several surplus positions in various wings at CBR as a part of the restructuring of the tax administration.

The government has already constituted 14 steering committees to further conduct a more detailed analysis of each wing and recommend adjustments in organizational structure and staff disposition as per their specific requirements.

The officials said that it was decided in a high-level meeting attended by top tax officials that some sections would be merged and a few others would be abolished thus streamlining the work flow at CBR headquarter.

According to a report compiled by these committees in which a number of overlapping functions in the charter of duties of various wings were identified, it was recommended that under the department of income tax at CBR, the offices of secretary (implementation) and secretary (OT), as well as, second secretary (Survey & Inspection) and second secretary (inspection and audit) should be merged.

It was also proposed that the post of the second secretary (survey) should be abolished; tax evasion issues should be handled by director general inspection; judicial, legal work might be handled by legal wing; posts of assistant and stenos be merged and there should be a pool of relieving staff as well.

The officials said that it was proposed that in the customs wing, valuation, judicial and audit sections be shifted under DG valuation, legal-wing and audit wing, respectively; two survey sections should be merged under one secretary; number of staff might be limited to one stenotypist and one naib qasid per secretary and foreign training of officers might be dealt by human resource wing only.

In the sales tax department, it was recommended that all PAC matters might be attended by audit branch, judicial and legal matters should be shifted to legal wing and a total of 8 officers should be reduced from various offices in this wing.

The legal, judicial and FTO matters of central excise duty should be shifted to legal wing and export wing might be merged with customs wing as collection of export data by the wing was a superfluous function as it was being done by other organization as well.

In the administration wing, it was also recommended that the post of chief (HRP) and Chief (Admn) as well as secretary (management) and secretary (HRP) should be merged; position of second secretary (HRD) in administration wing and Policy and Tax Reform (P&TR) wing respectively.