Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Tariq Bajwa has allowed the Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue in Islamabad to access the Computerised Risk-based Evaluation of Sales Tax (Crest) to ascertain the authenticity of the tax refund claims. According to newspaper reports,the directorate general had foundthe involvement of some elements in bogus refundclaims and illegal tax adjustments had sought permission from the FBR to investigate the matter. The department will ensure the recovery of the refund claims and will take legal action against the suspected violators. The Directorate General Intelligence and Investigation has already launched investigations into a four-member racket which was using Taxpayer Facilitation Portal of the FBR website by decoding the user IDs and passwords, causing millions of rupees losses to the national exchequer.
As a matter of fact, black sheep are penetrated in every field of life and are involved in corruption in cahoots with the official machinery. There are millions of well to do people in the country who want to pay taxes but are terrorized by a handful of unscrupulous elements. The rising percentage of tax collection every year indicates that there is no dearth of honest officials in the Federal Board of Revenue and its associate departments who work day and night in the service of the nation. The board is already taking disciplinary action against various officials to purge the department of the black sheep, but it is a process and a deadline cannot be assigned to it. The number of tax returns has significantly decreased this year despite repeated extensionsin deadlines. The FBR chief has, however, already indicated that he will personally look into the matter and will find a solution to certain laws.
The FBR is using man, machine and latest technology to ensure transparency in the tax collection procedure. The introduction of Crest was also part of the transparency plan of this prime institution of the federal government which had developed the software to curb rampant payment of illegal refunds and input tax adjustment.
A major concern for the nation is that indirect taxation adds more burden on the poor than the elite or the middle classes and the government should also take this aspect into account while devising tax collection policies. There is a need to devise a mechanical system not only to broaden tax net, but also minimise the trend of imposing indirect taxes across the board in which the ratio of tax is the same for all income groups.
