ISLAMABAD: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has organized an awareness workshop regarding its project titled “Public Awareness and Advocacy About Dispute Resolution Mechanism of Federal Tax Ombudsman” for medium and small scale enterprises. Muhammad Asif, Director General Administration FTO, has shed light on the historical perspective of the ombudsman office. He said the FTO offices are working to instill confidence in taxpayers.
At present, there are 150 ombudsman offices in the world. In Pakistan, the ombudsman office was established in 1983 and in year 2000, an independent office of the Federal Tax Ombudsman was established. He elaborated in detail the complaint filing procedure and other available facilities provided by the FTO office to aggrieved taxpayers. He said that the mandate of FTO office is to ensure prompt and inexpensive justice to taxpayers against maladministration by the tax employees of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). He said that an average 1,500 complaints are annually being handled by the FTO offices across the country.
Asif also highlighted the success stories of the FTO office since its establishment in year 2000. He said the tax-payers can file their complaints by courier, by hand, online or through e-mail. He said the services of FTO offices are free of cost, citizens friendly and the complaints are decided in 60 days. He said Form-A is available on the website of the FTO on which tax-payers can lodge their complaints. The form can also be obtained from the FTO offices, besides its Islamabad secretariat, located in Lahore, Karachi, Quetta, Peshawar, Sukkur, Abbottabad, Multan and Faisalabad. He further said Wafaqi Tax Mohtasib is working to eliminate fear of traders so that they can freely lodge their complaints with the FTO offices located across Pakistan. The traders gave useful feedback to the FTO team comprising Director General FTO, Muhammad Asif; Advisor Income Tax, Sardar Irhsad Shaheen, and Advisor Muhammad Siddique. Kashif Chaudhry, President All Pakistan Tajir Ittehad and President Markazi Anjuman-e-Taajran Islamabad; Rana Ayaz, President Islamabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industries; Malik Zaheer Ahmed, President Anjuman-e-Taajran Aabpara Market and Qazi Ilyas, President Anjuman-e-Taajran Jinnah Super Market addressed the event. The session was moderated by Ali Nasir, Media Manager, FTO Secretariat, Islamabad.
