Cabinet to decide FBR’s fate today

Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar has convened a federal cabinet meeting on Tuesday to approve restructuring of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) after all stakeholders conceded significant ground for a divorce between the Inland Revenue Service (IRS) and the Customs Group. The separation of the two service groups, which are collecting taxes, will result in an end to the FBR, whose parent body was set up in 1944. Finance Minister Dr Shamshad Akhtar has given up demand for the appointment of independent persons as heads of oversight boards of the Federal Customs Board (FCB) and the Federal Inland Revenue Board (FIRB). FCB and FIRB will be offshoots of the FBR that will cease to exist, subject to the cabinet’s approval. Akhtar has also agreed that the FCB and the FIRB should be the attached departments of the Revenue Division as against her earlier proposals that both should report to the oversight boards. IRS has signed up to the separation of the two services. The Customs Service has agreed to serve as an attached department of the Revenue Division, like the Inland Revenue.