Islamabad April 25, 2019: Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) has demanded the Federal Government to develop a detailed revenue budget and present it in the Parliament for greater transparency and to facilitate more efficient expenditure planning and parliamentary oversight.

In its letters to the Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Minister of State for Revenue, CPDI has noted that the annual budget presented by the Federal Government in the Parliament each year includes details about current and development expenditures, but very limited information is shared about revenue collection estimates, relevant assumptions and targets for each month, sector, region, district and lower zones or areas of responsibility. This effectively means little transparency and inadequate planning, which makes it hard for legislators, media and civil society to scrutinize the justification of set targets and then track performance against targets for each month, sector, region and district or lower tiers. It also makes it challenging to efficiently plan expenditures and scrutinize performance against targets in the parliament or other forums.

CPDI has demanded that the FBR should be required to develop a detailed revenue budget, which should provide, among others, full details about assumptions for revenue targets in relation to different types of taxes; objectives of various tax measures (e.g. to raise revenue or incentivize certain sectors, etc.); overall revenue targets including for different types of taxes; sector-wise revenue targets; province-, region- and district-wise revenue targets; ongoing tax measures; new tax measures; sectors or regions that remain exempt from one or the other type of tax, and the reasons thereof; and assessment of impact of ongoing and new tax measures on relevant sector of economy.

It has further demanded that the proposed revenue budget should be presented in the Parliament as a part of the annual budget, and then FBR should be required to submit quarterly performance reports in relation to each tax, province, region and district in the Parliament.