ISLAMABAD: The Office Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) expressed its helplessness on the implementation of its decision on various tax-related cases which were being filed by taxpayers against the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
“Decision which is not implemented is no decision”, Federal Tax Ombudsman Dr Muhammad Shoaib Suddle said at a news conference here while giving highlights of the performance of his office. The major non-implementation problems were noticed in custom related cases and which were of serious nature.
“FTO office has old cases dating to the year 2002. The wrongdoers are being noticed but the decisions are not implemented,” he said, adding that he was determined to settle the issues.
Dr Suddle said that from January to end March 2010, the FTO had cleared about 200 complaints pending from year 2009 and there was now no complaint left which was more than three-months old. In addition, 90 taxpayer complaints pertaining to 2010 have also been disposed of.
Through settlement of these complaints, Rs93 million tax payer’s money was being refunded to the aggrieved tax payers during the quarter under review.
“Our target for 2010 is to dispose of at least 60 per cent of the complaints within 60 days of their receipt in the FTO office”, he said. “Our goal is to raise the standard of quality services to be provided to the taxpayers and to investigate cases of tax maladministration fairly, independently, impartially and transparently,” he added.
“Awareness is less among the masses and that is the real issue”, the Ombudsman said adding that “people should know that they can file their complaints and argue their cases”.
It is interesting to note that the FTO has withdrawn the condition of submitting affidavit for filing a complaint to facilitate and enable the complainants to file their complaints freely and without hassle. A tax payer can now file his complaint on a simple plain paper, without the services of a tax lawyer /practitioner.
This office aims at providing speedy and inexpensive justice to tax payers aggrieved by tax maladministration. “I am determined to turn this into a model office, our major focus should be on policy issues and the media should also point out our weaknesses to make the organization more efficient,” Suddle said, adding, “We are terribly short of resources”.
About the new plans, the FTO said the office had already prepared PC-I for enhancing country wide outreach, upgradation of the FTO office which was approved by the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) of the planning commission in its recent meeting. This project is costing Rs140 million. Under this, outreach would be expanded to eight new cities i.e. Gujranwala, Multan, Faisalabad, Abbottabad and other cities, he said. At the moment the FTO has three offices in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.
FTO office has the vision to create a paperless environment by putting in place the latest and the most user-friendly system of e-filing for handling and management of complaints. It has also envisaged creation of video conferencing facility between the FTO headquarters and its regional offices to add speed to its business process.
Giving highlights of its performance, Dr Suddle said since June 2009, a backlog of about 200 cases was being disposed of pertaining to 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008. As a result of the decisions on these complaints, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) refunded Rs94 million to the taxpayers during 2009.
He said that 60 to 65 per cent cases which the tax payers filed against FBR pertained to income tax in which 80 per cent were refund cases.
Source: http://www.geo.tv/Business.htm
0 comments:
Post a Comment