KARACHI: Zakaria Usman, President, Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) has urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to immediately withdraw the SRO 351(I)/2014 dated 7-5-2014 conferring upon the officers of the Directorate General Intelligence & Investigation (I&I) of Inland Revenue the additional powers to ensure enforcement of specified provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 like collection of revenue, filing of ITR, wealth statement, assessment and provisional assessment of cases and audit of registered taxpayers for recovery of taxes and collection of revenue.
The FPCCI Chief argued that the SRO has created a parallel assessment organization in the presence of Large Taxpayers Units (LTUs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) and “The logic behind the issuance of SRO 351(I)/2014 is not understood,” he added.
Zakaria Usman lamented authorities concerned for issuance of the SRO unilaterally despite several assurances given by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Mian Nawaz Sharif and Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar that no decisions related to trade and industry would be taken without consultation with the stakeholders or the apex body of trade associations, FPCCI. He added, “This new SRO will generate restlessness and sense of insecurity amongst the minuscule number of existing taxpayers whereas the tax evaders are scotch free”. Therefore, Zakaria Usman was of the view that such steps would discourage the existing taxpayers to pay their tax liability willingly and the potential taxpayers to come into the tax net voluntarily as the SRO would erode their confidence in the government taxation policy, a pre-requisite for success of any scheme, and would serve as a counter-productive to the government efforts of broadening of tax base.
The President of FPCCI further disclosed that the SRO 351(1)/2014 would open up the floodgates of corruption because of repeated/multiple interventions of the government agencies in the smooth functioning of business and as such is against the government policy of minimizing the direct contact between a taxpayer and a tax collector because it promotes tax evasion and corruption.
