Inland Revenue’s field formations: Ban imposed on creating new field units and ranges

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has imposed a ban on the Inland Revenue’s field formations for creating new field units and ranges in different cities of the country.

In this regard, the FBR has issued a circular to the chief commissioners in the field formations, here on Wednesday.

According to the FBR, a meeting of IR-Operations and Admin Wings of the FBR took place, wherein, the various requirements of IR field formations were discussed.

During the meeting, it was observed that field formations had increased the number of units and ranges without taking into consideration the notified sanctioned strength of the field offices.

Needless to say, with increase of just one extra unit, there raises a requirement of support and technical staff, this leads to an unending shortage of human resource for the organisation, the FBR said.

Foregoing in view, it has been decided that from henceforth, no new unit/range shall be created in any field office unless prior approval of the Board is obtained.

Furthermore, all chief commissioners are requested to share details of existing units and ranges as per template given below enabling this office to notify the sanctioned strength accordingly, the FBR added.

Tax experts stated that the creation of the units in the field formations is the sole discretion of the chief commissioners/commissioners depending upon the requirements.

The interference of the FBR in the field matters is a wrong tax policy.

The field offices are well aware of the requirements of the workforce for enforcement etc in the field formations.

Therefore, prior permission of the FBR for creating field units and ranges in the field formations would delay day to day operations of the LTUs/RTOs.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2020