Imperatives for NBR automation

If officials at the Large Taxpayers' Unit (LTU) of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) have to rummage through hundreds of files for information, it surely is an anachronism in this age of automation. The manual work not only is bothersome but also does consume a lot of time of the relevant officials. But the situation was not like this even a year back. Information about large taxpayers was then only a click away under the Income Tax Management System (ITMS). This was in place ever since the inception of the LTU. The LTU officials could use the ITMS facility for long 13 years for analysing data, monitoring revenue trend and assessing sector-wise tax collections.

What has now gone wrong? The ITMS was a donor-financed project and two expatriate programmers used to operate the system. With the expiry of the project the programmers neither transferred the necessary technical know-how to the local operators before leaving the country nor were the skilled IT officials appointed to operate the system. What is more surprising is that the LTU which handles more than one-third of the NBR's tax revenue earnings, has only one mid-level IT hand when it has got 17 sanctioned posts for doing the technical works. Despite repeated requests, the authorities concerned have reportedly made no move to fill up the vacant posts of IT experts. In such a situation, the LTU men are, obviously, facing difficulties in carrying out their daily work efficiently and also at the required speed.

The situation that now prevails at the LTU, as far as its automation is concerned, does strikingly run counter to all the claims about making the tax administration technically sound and strong. One of the major elements of the avowed reform of the country's taxation system has been its automation. In that case, how could the authorities concerned allow the expatriate programmers to leave the country without transferring the necessary know-how about ITMS operations to local technical hands? Why should such authorities fail to fill up the vacant posts of IT experts at the LTU for such a long time? It is widely acknowledged that automation does help not only streamline and speed up operation of any office but also ensure its transparency and accountability. All the units under the NBR do need to modernise, automate, upgrade and revamp their activities to order to ensure this.

The demand for reforming operations of the NBR, automation being at the top of the agenda, has been pending since long. It is however alleged that some unscrupulous sections among the taxmen are reluctant to facilitate and operationalise automation. They are reportedly scuttling any move for speedy automation of the tax operation system. Tax revenue mobilisation efforts have, undoubtedly, been improved in recent years to a marked extent. But the aggregate tax receipts have always fallen short of the projected ones. The tax-GDP (gross domestic product) ratio of the country is also not only at the lowest level in the region but also less than that of the countries that are at the same stage of development. It goes without saying that additional efforts and plugging of leakages in tax collection are needed most. On this count, automation of tax offices and also similar related facilities at the taxpayers' end, are the basics for boosting tax revenue collection.