FBR to implement comprehensive IT Strategy 2017-19

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will implement a comprehensive Information Technology (IT) Strategy (2017-19) including a new facilitation feature to have online access of the ongoing tax proceedings to both the tax officials and the taxpayers.
Sources told Business Recorder here on Thursday that the FBR will implement the major recommendations of the WB mission on tax component of the Trust Fund for Accelerated Growth and Revenue (TAGR). The 126 recommendations were discussed between the FBR and the TAGR mission regarding action plan for implementation of the IT-Strategy (2017-19).
Both the sides discussed that irritants of all systems have to be addressed. FBR officers working in field offices have several complaints because technical persons develop systems, then systems are handed over to FBR without initial trainings to officers, without help modules placing online or user manual guides and also in the absence of business domain team. This gap has to be bridged by having a dedicated team in restructured IT-Wing with all IT-infrastructures as proposed earlier in place.
Secondly, the systems developed are expensive, unresponsive and have usability issues. Outsourcing in past has been an expensive option for FBR (first they pay Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited 'PRAL' then hire others to get things done).
It has been decided that the IRIS capacity needs to be enhanced so that taxpayers and officers have a specialised IRIS Dashboard that can be used to review their current account, including a history of assessments, payments, refunds and tax liabilities with an easy to use, easy to understand interface that requires little or no training.
It has been decided to implement a case managements system that can be used to track the status of litigations and appeals. This system needs to be deployed and should contain all administrative and judicial legal processes related to tax cases and should include a report of the legal history for authorised users, should allocate tax appeals case, monitors progress, records decisions and dates, stores documents and data, and generate management reports (e.g. on revenue yield directly attributable to legal action).
Within the case management system, the facilities for recording taxpayer legal notices and the corresponding legally binding replies are required. This online tax proceedings database should be accessible to taxpayers and officers, recommendation said.
It has been decided that the software development has to keep in mind the operational needs. This must be met by Business Domain in IT. The PRAL team must be capable to handle any queries of field offices. Moreover, the software development capability of PRAL has to be enhanced by WB team. Around 150 software developers in PRAL must co-ordinate through Business Domain (IT-FBR) to get usable and responsive software/ programmes/applications.
The WB has also agreed to support FBR/PRAL on developing user friendly software that will assist FBR in achieving its IT-Vision.
It is decided that the creation of Dashboard for financial reporting, status of litigations, E-payments, information and risk based audit module by PRAL in process will be completed by February 2017. Allied systems/applications can be developed and linked as per requirements of common Business Framework of FBR side by side to have integrated systems by 2019.
On the issue of improvement of Help Desk, it was suggested that not only website needs updating but all applications also need review e.g. complaint handling, processing, including definitions and processes to manage issues. The FATE Wing & PRAL are already working on it with the assistance from HRMC and it will be up and running possibly within next 6 months. It was suggested that Common Business Framework should be kept in mind to develop all software applications.
On the issue of audit processing/risk based module, it informed that the module is partially in place and system is under development. The said module would be operational. It was suggested that Tax Payers Audit & PRAL have to expedite the process and complete it by September 2017.
The WB committed to providing assistance in software development of risk based audit systems, sources said.
About the restructuring of IT-Wing FBR, it has been decided that in order to improve the quality of technical services, IT-Wing has to play a major role.
Out of 10 persons in BDT at least 2 have to be specialists on analytics and 2 conversant with mobile applications, regularly review usability studies of PRAL, analyse utility for each services/ application provided to FBR and suggest improvements to technical team working at PRAL. The Analytics will also weigh the cost of application vs its benefits and recommend improvements. For future integration of systems & success of Common Business Frameworks (CBF), PRAL has to work with Business Domain Team of IT-Wing that will serve as a coordination entity rather than isolated software developments at different levels. This will help in bridging the gap between operational (FBR end user) and technical (PRAL developer) teams, and creation of systems that can be integrated.
Architectural Group will be a part of BDT who will assist the BDT in operations and enforce usability studies by PRAL. IT-Wing can set standards for each application for its measurement e.g. how much time it takes to fill in a return form on average and sets targets to reduce time of filing for example, then AG monitors that those are followed and improved continuously.
Change Management Task force (CMTF) under the IT-Wing has also proposed that it will form a part of ICT-Strategy of FBR along with BDT. It needs to include young people headed by a secretary. The CMTF to have a team of credible, intelligent, passionate and willing employees having persuasive power to serve as catalyst of change within organisational culture. The goal would be to change perceptions and promote a culture of coordination and working together for same objectives and altering the FBR's outlooks.
There has to be at least 5 people to start with as change agents equipped with all equipment to conduct regular workshops, consensus building on action and engaging people from all levels of FBR.
It has been decided that the IT-Wing FBR will propose ICT-Strategy Implementation Plan to Higher Authorities at FBR for approval by February-2017.
It was discussed that proper key performance indicators (KPIs) be developed against each service provided by PRAL to FBR in order to measure performance and set targets for continuous improvement of PRAL as service provider. It has been decided that the IT-Wing will develop a few KPIs to start with and build on this system to measure the services by end of April-2017. The WB will assist and train IT-Wing to be able to develop KPIs along with SLAs may-June (2017).
The PRAL will create proper complaint log software to determine how many complaints are received, how many are resolved, how many are pending, and how much time it takes to resolve those (system to be in place by March-2017).
Analytics Team of IT-Wing will randomly survey to know the actual feedback and to measure the satisfaction level of FBR Operation and External users, they added.