Established as the
Central Board of Revenue on 1 April 1924 through enactment of the "
Central Board of Revenue Act, 1924". In 1944, the CBR was put under the
Revenue Division with the
Ministry of Finance until 1960, when on the recommendations of the "
Administrative Reorganization Committee", the CBR was made into a division of the Ministry of Finance. In 1974, further changes were made to streamline the organization and its functions. In 1991, the CBR was once again reverted to its original status under the Revenue Division, however in January 1995, the Revenue Division was abolished and the CBR was once again reverted to a division of the Ministry of Finance. In 2007, the "
FBR Act" was passed in July 2007, whereby the Central Board of Revenue was renamed to the present-day Federal Board of Revenue and for a third time placed again under the Revenue Division of the Ministry of Finance. FBR primarily operates through its main collection arms comprising Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) and Large Taxpayer Units (LTUs) across the country. The FBR's
suo motu authority to modify income tax assessments has been limited by the
Lahore High Court's (LHC) Rawalpindi bench, which ruled that Section 122(5A) of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, cannot be applied to "roving or fishing inquiries" or speculative revenue collection. In the income tax reference Commissioner Inland Revenue versus Sajid Hussain Gondal and others, Justices Mirza Viqas Rauf and Jawad Hassan provided long-needed doctrinal clarity to a provision often invoked by tax authorities by laying out guidelines on the extent and boundaries of amendment powers under Section 122. The reference application, which was submitted in accordance with Section 133 of the ordinance, contested an Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue (ATIR) ruling that invalidated a change made to a taxpayer's presumed assessment for the 2019 tax year. The FBR's utilization of Section 122(5A) in the case was previously declared illegal by the tribunal. ==Structure==