Digitisation to help achieve sustainable growth

Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Ali Pervez Malik has stressed that if the country needs to achieve a more inclusive and sustainable growth, then end-to-end-digitisation of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is imperative.

Chairing first meeting of the task force on digitalisation of the FBR, held on Tuesday at the FBR headquarters and co-chaired by DG C41 Major General Syed Ali Raza, the state minister said the prime minister had constituted the task force for submitting recommendations to completely digitise all systems at the FBR. He explained that the ultimate goal of the task force was to formulate such policy interventions which could improve efficacy of the FBR to further build up revenue stream for the country.

Speaking on the occasion, the DG C41 said the end-result of the government's reform agenda was to increase tax-to-GDP ratio for increasing revenue generation.

He emphasised the need for focusing on implementing various initiatives to achieve fruitful results. FBR Chairman Rashid Mahmood Langrial, who was present in the meeting, emphasised that the Revenue Division was committed to maximising revenue through data automation and the adoption of software solutions.

He urged committee members to come up with practical recommendations to achieve the given tasks and called for the integration of systems as well as deployment of new systems to modernise the tax agency and enable it to achieve future targets. In the meeting, Ali Malik from consulting firm Mckinsey gave a presentation on the progress made in efforts for digitisation of the FBR.

He elaborated that the firm was focusing on two major areas. First is the overall digitisation of the FBR and the second is to identify and implement quick wins.

The meeting was informed that data sharing among key stakeholders was underway to compile high quality data to identify non-filers of tax returns and those dodging the system to evade taxes. It was told that four wins in the areas of income tax, sales tax, customs duty and excise duty collection had been identified based on global experience and data available with the FBR.