EDITORIAL: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has decided to take strict action against tax defaulters and short-filers which would require purchase of 1100 vehicles of 1300cc each with a tracker to be used by auditors, income tax inspectors, superintendents, appraisers and BPS-18 officers from Inland Revenue Service, Customs Service, Sales Tax Formation, Federal Excise Duty and Income Tax Formation.
And a central control room will be set up at headquarters to monitor the trackers.
The total cost of these cars was estimated at 6 billion rupees, which would be taken out from the transformation fund approved by the prime minister.
Time will tell if the purchase of vehicles with trackers will enable the FBR to achieve its objective — identify tax defaulters and short-filers and penalise them.
It is relevant to note that the Track-and Trace Programme Licensee was to be implemented in three sectors — tobacco, sugar and fertilizer — with the objective of enhancing tax revenue, reducing counterfeiting and preventing smuggling of illicit goods through implementation of a robust nationwide, electronic monitoring system of production volumes and by the affixation of billions of tax stamps/bar codes on various products at the production stage.
The FBR website further claims that the system increased transparency, improved tax compliance, and reduced prevalence of counterfeit goods though no data has been cited.
In April 2024, it was reported that there was a delay due to failure to sign an agreement between the FBR and the sector (cement was noted) to ensure availability of auto applicators and other relevant equipment for operationalising the track-and-trace system (TTS) - clearly not the fault of the licensee, and in addition, FBR issued instructions for the implementation of TTS at 150 lines that were violative of the agreement signed with the consortium that was awarded the licence.
Reports dating back to May last year noted that the TTS has not been fully implemented and is creating hurdles in discussions with multilaterals who are insisting on improving digitisation.
In the last quarter of last fiscal year a Tariq Bajwa-led inquiry committee concluded that the project was to be completed by February 2022 but litigation/court stays on implementation, bureaucratic inefficiencies and incompetence of FBR officials delayed its implementation and suggested (i) a small team, 87 IREN staff members, had little presence on the ground and were not be able to deliver and therefore the entire FBR needs to be engaged (or perhaps a better alternative may have been to add on to the number of auditors); and (ii) there was waning interest in the tobacco sector with major leakages witnessed attributed to smuggling and entry of non-duty products.
Aftab Baloch, Adviser to Tax Ombudsman, wrote on a social media network dated 21 October 2024 that the prime minister constituted a task force on digitisation of FBR under the chairmanship of the Minister of State for Finance and Revenue with the terms of reference to share data vertically with the provinces and horizontally with ministries, including supply chain automation, track and tracing through an integrated track-and -trace system, restructuring PRAL and trade data sharing interface with trading partners.
And he concluded on a hopeful note, which indicated lack of implementation: “Let us hope for a promising future of TTS in Pakistan which will result in economic revival, spiral growth in revenue collection, increase in foreign direct investment and growth in economic activity which is the need of the hour.
It is time to act - otherwise, Pakistan will fall into the abyss and once again waste a timely and unique opportunity for the country!“
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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