ISLAMABAD, May 8: The government will select one of the four international consulting firms who have sent their bids for the implementation of tax administration restructuring plan.

The multinational firms, who sent their bids to the Central Board of Revenue included KPMG, Price Water House Coopers, Maxwell Stamps and IBMFD.

Of these firms, a senior official in the CBR told Dawn, one would be selected for the task later this month.

This was informed to the visiting IMF technical team during the review of the tax machinery revamping. The review mission was briefed by member policy and tax reforms M.S. Lal here on Wednesday.

The mission was told that President Pervez Musharraf had approved the constitution, composition and role of supervisory council for the CBR to be headed by federal finance minister to oversee the reform project.

According to the official, the work was under progress for the establishment of the proposed pilot large taxpayer unit (LTU) at Karachi based on functional organization and encompassing all domestic taxes and will be effective from July 1, 2002.

The IMF mission was told that the setting up of LTU would reduce compliance cost of large taxpayers to secure revenue, improve audit capacity, monitor arrears and integrate taxes.

The World Bank has provided $2.9 million facility for revamping tax machinery.

The mission was assured that the reform agenda would be carried out as was agreed with the Fund, the official said and added the CBR was undertaking a study on implementation to revise recruitment policy and incentives on merit based remuneration for the employees.

According to informed sources, the CBR has also reportedly sought the autonomy from the federal government in formulation of its own budget and administrative polices.

Furthermore, sources said it would seek autonomy in adopting its own human resource recruitment and development strategy and to protect itself against undue intrusion from the intelligence agencies.