ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) not to conduct raids at any business entity without proper permission by its chairman or Member Operations.
The Senate body meeting, chaired by Senator Saleem Mandviwalla, also decided to write letters to the prime minister, National Assembly speaker, Senate chairman and finance minister in this regard. After hearing of tax related complaints of the business representatives, the committee chairman directed FBR authorities that if they wanted to conduct raid on some suspicion of tax evasion, it should be done on the orders of FBR chairman or member operations.
Mandviwalla said that the power of raid should not be kept with commissioners or RTOs, as it would earn respect for FBR as well as for taxpayers. He said that the FBR chairman as well as member operation would be answerable for any raid and informed them that the committee would be devising a mechanism to monitor these raids on monthly basis. However, he said that there was no restriction of raids on non-filers, which he said could be conducted on the order of other authorities as per the procedure.
The FBR chairman, while briefing the committee, assured that he would be taking all possible measures to resolve the complaints of the business community. He said that he has already taken action on some complaints regarding manipulation in tax matters by some tax officials. He informed the committee that as many as 237 raids were conducted which resulted in revenue collection of Rs2.85 billion. He assured the businessmen that their pending cases would be referred to Alternative Dispute Resolution Committee (ADRCs) for immediate resolution.
The committee members as well as businessmen were of the view that FBR officials were using coercive means and were harassing business community. They were of the view that instead of broadening tax base, the FBR was overburdening existing taxpayers, and urged that the board should devise a comprehensive strategy to bring the non-filers into tax net.
