Need stressed for regular meetings of TPB

Tax Policy Board (TPB), a long standing demand of the business community, was set up in February this year in the Finance Division, has met only once, informed sources told Business Recorder. The separation of tax policy from tax administration, a key decision in reforming the poorly performing Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) by the Khan-led administration was held hostage to speculation of an imminent change in the economic team.
With the new economic team now in place progress is expected, sources in the Finance Ministry and FBR stated.
The objective of TPB is to end FBR's role and focus exclusively on revenue collection.
On Feb 14, former Minister for Finance Asad Umar chaired the only meeting of the Tax Policy Board, which was established under the FBR Act 2007. Since then, no meeting has been convened to discuss and/or finalize any strategy for formulating a tax policy.
Tax policy and revenue administration within the FBR led to policy being used as a tool to maximize revenue rather than as a tool to increase investment and fuel economic growth.
TPB was envisaged to engage in revenue forecasting, tax expenditure analysis, distributional analysis, economic impact analysis, cost-benefit analysis and tax indicator analysis, sources added.
Prime Minister Imran Khan nominated six new members of TPB including Adviser for Commerce, Industries & Textile Industries Abdul Razak Dawood, information technology professional Syed Javed, Nadra Chairman Usman Yousaf Mobin, former FBR chairman Abdullah Yousaf, an economist Dr Ijaz Nabi and former FBR chairman Salman Siddique.
The federal cabinet had approved to separate tax policy from revenue administration and constituted a committee to work out legal and technical modalities to this effect.
The cabinet also set up an implementation committee comprising the finance minister as chairman, minister of state for revenue, cabinet secretary, finance secretary and the FBR chairman as members. The committee could co-opt any other member if it chose to do so.
The committee's terms of reference were to work out the modalities, role and responsibilities of the Finance Division and Revenue Division for seamless transition and activities of the TBP.