LAHORE: The President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari has ordered that filers of income tax returns manually would now be able to enjoy all the tax benefits of taxpayers who are filing returns electronically and warned the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) that the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has the lawful powers under the FTO Ordinance, 2000 to direct the Agency to take steps to avert and rectify maladministration.
Sources told that while rejecting an appeal filed by the FBR against an order of the FTO, the President stated that a statutory body is duty-bound under the law to perform its functions/duties in accordance with the law. There is thus no valid justification to interfere with the order of the FTO.
Sources told that a Lahore-based tax lawyer, Waheed Shahzad Butt, had highlighted this anomaly before the FBR and FTO in a public interest move, wherein the FTO summoned heads of FBR-IR Policy, Operations, Legal wings and Member Information Technology, wherein after consultation matter has been resolved without wasting taxpayer money in futile litigation.
Waheed Butt further added that the FTO Dr Asif Jah has ordered the FBR to adopt some mechanisms and put in place SOPs to ensure that all (Manual) filers of income tax returns for the latest tax year are active as per ATL issued by the FBR. Despite the FBR’s responsibility to ensure fair and equitable taxation for all citizens, it has come to light that manual filers of tax returns have illegally been discriminated against electronically filed returns. This failure to cater to the specific needs of this vulnerable segment of the taxpayer community has drawn sharp criticism from various quarters.
A categorical written intimation/ information regarding the blatant violation of Rule 73 of Income Tax Rules 2002 by FBR and the illegal exclusion of some taxpayers from the ATL database, was moved but all in vain. The FBR, in direct violation of Rule 73, has deemed/ treated the manually filed income tax return as “inactive,” despite it being filed within the time specified by law: Waheed Butt added.
FBR should implement substantial measures to rectify these shortcomings and issues. This would benefit the general public and other individuals or taxpayers who experience such injustices, even though they have filed their returns. The instance case is a rare instance to be forwarded to the apex authority SIFC for consideration to overhaul/restructure the present FBR.
The recommendations of FTO “to adopt some mechanism and put in place an SOP to ensure that all filers of returns for the latest tax year are active as per ATL issued by the Board” are unassailable. The representation is liable to be rejected with these observations: President ordered.
