ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has written a letter to the Senate Standing Committee about purchasing new vehicles worth billions of rupees for its staff.
In the letter, the FBR contended that without purchasing new vehicles it was impossible for the FBR to achieve the tax target.
The FBR said in its letter that the vehicles will only be given to Grade 17 and 18 officers deployed in field offices while Grade 19 and above officers will not be given such vehicles. The letter said that to prevent the misuse of vehicles, FBR stickers will be pasted on them. According to the law, vehicles are allowed to be purchased locally from the manufacturers or their agent.
The letter further said that the country is currently undergoing an economic recovery whose sustainability depends on revenue collection and the FBR is working on a war footing to meet the target of Rs. 1,300 billion tax receipts.
According to the letter, in the last fiscal year, the FBR was facing a tax gap of Rs600 billion, of which Rs3,500 billion was in the form of sales tax.
It may be recalled that the Senate Standing Committee on Finance had expressed strong resentment over the purchase of 1,010 vehicles worth Rs6 billion for FBR officers. The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee had also written a letter to the finance minister asking him not to pay money for the purchase of vehicles.
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