About 40% of Federal Board of Revenue officers being considered for promotion have been placed on a performance watch list over competency and integrity concerns, tax authorities said, as suspension cases have tripled over the past two years.
In a background briefing, officials said financial integrity has become a central factor in promotion decisions. FBR statistics show the share of officers on the watch list rose sharply, from about 2% in 2023 to roughly 40% in 2025. Authorities attributed the jump to a series of measures introduced by FBR Chairman Rashid Langrial since taking office two years ago.
Those measures, combined with tighter internal scrutiny, have driven down the share of officers with low integrity ratings in critical Inland Revenue positions from 74% in July 2023 to just 11% by June 2026, according to the authorities, who said 89% of such posts are now held by highly rated officers. In Customs, the share of low-rated officers in critical posts fell from 71% in January 2023 to 9% by June 2026, with officials noting the decline accelerated after Langrial assumed office in August 2024.
Authorities also said the culture of nepotism is being actively discouraged, claiming that not a single officer has been posted on the recommendation of a politician or bureaucrat since the reforms began, with postings instead based on professional qualification, integrity, and competency.
Since August 2024, the FBR has carried out what officials describe as one of its most sustained self-accountability drives in recent history. Disciplinary proceedings resulting in major penalties nearly doubled, from 38 cases in FY2023-24 to 75 in FY2025-26. Suspensions of Inland Revenue Service and Customs officers in grades BS-16 to BS-21 followed a similar trajectory, climbing from 33 in FY24 to 105 in FY26, roughly triple the pre-reform baseline.
As of April 2026, authorities said 32 officers, 14 from Inland Revenue and 18 from Customs, had been found to have questionable reputations, with most holding BS-20 or higher grades; the majority have since been sidelined and denied further postings. Officials acknowledged, however, that sidelining officers with disputed financial integrity remains procedurally difficult and that the FBR has historically struggled to gather evidence robust enough to withstand judicial scrutiny. They maintained that care is being taken to avoid undue penalization, with every senior posting now subject to a vetting standard introduced over the past two years.
For the first time, the FBR has adopted a system-based performance management mechanism, with mandatory peer reviews reaching 100% completion across its last three evaluation cycles, a tool officials described as providing a more reliable basis for judging integrity and competence in postings, promotions, and rewards.
Ombudsman Flags Refund System Flaw
Separately, the Federal Tax Ombudsman identified a systemic flaw in the FBR’s FASTER sales tax refund system and directed the tax authority on Friday to take immediate corrective action. FTO Zafar Hijazi warned the defect was harming exporters and undermining the automated refund process.
Ruling on a complaint filed by Karachi-based exporter Quality Towellers, Hijazi found that the FASTER system could not distinguish between Goods Declarations for commercial exports and those for non-commercial sample exports, causing it to wrongly flag claims as “GD Not Realised” and divert entire refund claims to manual processing instead of deferring only the proportionate amount required under STGO No. 09 of 2023 and the Sales Tax Act, 1990.
The ombudsman noted that exporters sending samples via courier were especially affected, since such shipments don’t require realization of export proceeds and aren’t eligible for refunds, yet are automatically logged in the IRIS sales tax return with no way to remove them, triggering unnecessary objections. Pakistan Revenue Automation Limited told the FTO it merely receives export GD data from Pakistan Customs through an automated interface and has no authority to alter it, stressing that any correction must originate with Customs before flowing through to IRIS. The FTO described the issue as a “systemic and hazardous loophole” threatening the export sector.
