ISLAMABAD: Member Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Inland Revenue-Policy Rehmatullah Khan Wazir has defended the FBR’s authority to withdraw tax from defaulters’ banks accounts.
However, members of the Senate Finance Committee termed the FBR’s action in violation of the FBR’s act and law.
While speaking in the Senate Finance Committee here, Rehmatullah Khan Wazir said that the law provided provision to the FBR to withdraw tax amount from the bank accounts of the tax defaulters. He said that this power had produced very good results as it has enabled the FBR to take measures to punish the defaulters.
But members mainly from PML-Q, JUI-F and PPP were quite critical of the FBR authority and demanded the board officials operate within the ambit of the constitutional jurisdiction.
They also pressed on appropriate legislation to confine the actions and operations of FBR within the constitutional provisions. They were of the view that FBR was not authorized of withdrawing any amount from the bank account of any tax defaulter until the court would have issued the judgment in a sub judice case.
Kamil Ali Agha, Talha Mehmood and few others demanded slashing of FBR’s power through legislation. At this Chairman Committee questioned the legal status of FBR action in case the court would issue judgment against the FBR in the said case.
However, Rehmatullah Khan Wazir observed that FBR would become toothless without this power because it would not be in a position to punish any defaulter.
He further said that China Harbour Engineering Company was defaulter of Rs 2.10 billion tax and FBR enjoyed powers to pull out up to Rs 50 million from the bank account of any defaulter company.
Although the Inland Revenue department had made preparations on other relevant issues including levy of additional sales tax on CNG industry, yet the committee deferred the discussion on this topic till next meeting.
