ISLAMABAD: Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) released its three years performance report from 2021 to 2023, during which the department disposed of around 17,101 complaints.
Addressing a press conference, FTO Registrar Muhammad Majid Qureshi along with Advisor Media Nazim Saleem and Advisor Customs Dr Arslan Subuctageen highlighted performance of the FTO year by year.
The performance report covered three major aspects of the organization including registration of complaints, disposal of complaints, and implementation of the recommendations.
As per the details, the FTO settled down 8,128 complaints out of 8,076 in 2023, provided relief to 6,106 and 2,867 complainants in 2022 and 2021 respectively. The number of registered complaints stood 5,752 in 2022 and 2,816 in 2021.
In 2023, FTO Registrar Muhammad Majid Qureshi said the organization launched an aggressive outreach campaign to create public awareness about the role of FTO office for providing speedy and cost-free justice to aggrieved taxpayers and general public.
He said the FTO held around 115 seminars with concerned Chambers of Commerce and Industry (CCI), different Trade bodies, Tax Bars, and college/universities in 2023 compared to 76 such seminars and sessions in organized in 2022.
In order to facilitate taxpayers and general public to register complaints with FTO office, he said a state-of-the-art automated Complaint System (COMSYS) at (https://fto.gov.pk/onlineComSys) for online registration of complaints was in place.
Besides, the complaints can also be made through WhatsApp (0334-0544460) and email ([email protected]) swiftly.
He said The Pakistan Telecom Authority (PTA) was also requested to instruct the Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) for disseminating tax-complaint related messages to the general public through different cellular companies Mobilink, Ufone, Telenor, CM Pak and SCO.
Following which, almost 60,000 calls were received in FTO office asking questions regarding functions and objectives of FTO office and modes of filing complaints. Such calls numbering 80,000 were also received on FTO’s office WhatsApp number 0334-0544460.
It is important to highlight that the President of Pakistan has upheld decisions and recommendations of the FTO in 86.01 percent of the representations filed by FBR and complainants against these decisions.
A Helpline has also been established in FTO Secretariat, Islamabad to facilitate the aggrieved taxpayers and help out general public in order to guide them about the modes of filing of complaints.
The Revenue Division (FBR), Majid Qureshi said, had been responding positively on the recommendations of FTO and had accordingly improved some of its systems by issuing SOPs/Circulars/Orders including the SOPs for De-Registration of NTN/STRN of deceased taxpayers.
He said the FTO office was committed to rescuing taxpayers and public on their legitimate complaints against tax officials and system which undermined their legal rights through maladministration ultimately leading to financial corruption.
Replying to a question, Advisor Customs Dr Arslan Subuctageen said that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) auctioned several non-custom paid vehicles on directives of the FTO which fetched Rs 7 billion in 2023.
