ISLAMABAD, Dec 6: The government has decided to weed out corruption from the tax machinery in the next two to three years, claimed Central Board of Revenue (CBR) chairman, Riaz Ahmed Malik.

The CBR chief said that those who were habitually corrupt would be knocked out from the tax administration as part of the restructuring of the tax machinery.

He made these remarks while giving a presentation to the ad hoc Public Accounts Committee (PAC) here on Thursday.

Justifying the need for restructuring of the tax administration, Mr Riaz said that CBR and its field formations would be revamped to address the problems emanating from low growth of revenue to GDP ratio, lack of transparency, and inability of the tax system to keep pace with the dynamic global economic environment.

The current territorial structure of income tax, which was being operated in five regions, 32 zones and 757 circles would be transformed from four-layer hierarchical system to two-layer functional system, the chairman said.

The new system was aimed at simplifying laws, reducing interfacing between taxpayers and tax collectors through the use of information technology, universal self-assessment, voluntary tax compliance and audit-based procedures.

While appreciating the reforms programme of tax administration, the chairman PAC, H.U Beg stressed the need for corruption-free tax machinery, which, he said, would increase the revenue on an on-going basis. This would also shift the working of tax administration from paper-based process to electronic interactive services, he added.

Mr Beg said that besides introducing necessary reforms in the tax machinery, a change in the tax culture and behaviour of employees in the tax department was also necessary.

The briefing was attended, among others, by Lt-Gen (retd) Talat Masood, Syed Shaukat Hussain, Irtiza Hussain, Hassan Bhutto, Muzafar Ahmed, S.M Zafarullah, Deputy Auditor General, Controller General Accounts, Additional Secretary Finance and senior tax officials.