Daily Times

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday vowed to launch a crackdown against the tax evaders and their facilitators saying that he would leave no stone unturned to eliminate them.

He was chairing a high level meeting at the PM House to discuss tax reforms, digitization of the economy and measures to boost revenues.

Emphasizing the importance of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), the prime minister said the Board played an important role in running n the economic wheel and pledged to provide all necessary resources for its human resource development and digitization.

He said during the budget preparations, he had issued clear directives to bring more people in the tax net and that the elites should be made to pay their due taxes. He said minimum taxes were imposed on the middle and lower classes in the recent budget. He said decreasing the tax rate and expanding the tax net was the government’s top priority, which was already working to ensure complete digitization of the tax system and enhance the capacity building of the workforce.

The prime minister also stressed the need of documenting the economy and increasing the tax collection through digital means. He directed the authorities to take a swift action to bring more people in the tax net.

The representatives of international firm McKinsey and Karandaaz briefed the prime minister about the past four weeks’ progress with respect to increasing the revenues and digitization of the FBR. Besides, short and medium term plans were also presented in the meeting regarding increasing the tax revenues. It was told that the digitization and automation of the value chain of economy would help increase the revenues, besides its documentation. Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif Thursday instructed federal secretaries and heads of departments to personally utilize the Task Management System. He issued these instructions while chairing a meeting to assess the implementation progress of directives requiring federal ministries and departments to use the Task Management System.

The Task Management System is a modern software of international standards used to monitor instructions issued by the prime minister to federal ministries, and progress in this regard.

The prime minister also decided to conduct daily review for implementing the task management system. He said that continuous monitoring of progress in all projects was the initial step towards their timely completion. During the briefing, it was told that a mobile application for the task management system had already been developed.

Prime Minister Muhammad Shehbaz Sharif on Thursday approved the initiation of legislation for Asaan Karobar Act saying that promotion of the business and investment friendly environment was the government’s top priority. Chairing a meeting on ease of doing business, the prime minister directed the relevant authorities to establish a one-window operation to simplify documentary procedures for the businesses and traders.

He also directed to seek assistance from the Chinese experts to establish an experimental facility service center modeled after the Shenzhen One-Stop Shop. As regards ease of doing business and other various initiatives, it was informed that an electronic registry would be establish for business registration, licenses, certificates and other documents.

It was further told that an online one-window Pakistan Business Portal system would be introduced through which services of all the the relevant departments could be accessed.

It was apprised that a strategy was being evolved for the establishment of Islamabad Business Facilitation Center.