ISLAMABAD: A World Bank task team is due next month to assist the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in implementing a project aimed at strengthening the tax system and building capacity for the tax policy analysis.

The World Bank approved the project in April. Its objective is to support policy-informed decisions in domestic revenue mobilisation. It will help with producing annual comprehensive tax expenditure analysis and forecasting annual tax revenues of the FBR and provincial governments.

According to the World Bank, the grant agreement for the project was signed early in August after some delay because of additional consultants with the FBR and internal changes in the Economic Affairs Division.

The project aims to mobilise domestic revenues by helping policymakers make informed decisions. This requires strengthening the tax information technology system and building fiscal research and tax policy analysis capacity.

“The FBR needs to update data centres, including storage, servers and network equip­­ment, and support the implementation of the cha­nge management plan.”

Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2017