The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has implemented 94.07 percent recommendations of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) in 2,391 cases of maladministration filed against the tax machinery during 2023.
Addressing a press conference at the FTO office on Tuesday, Majid Qureshi Advisor/Registrar, Nazim Saleem, Advisor (Sales Tax) and Dr Arslan Subuctageen, Advisor (Customs) informed that the FTO has decided 8,128 complaints filed by the taxpayers against the FBR during 2023.
Qureshi informed that the President of Pakistan has upheld decisions/recommendations of the FTO in 86.01 percent of the representations filed by the FBR. The FTO has repeatedly taken up the matter of unnecessary litigation by the FBR. There are many cases where FBR has filed representations with the President only to gain time in litigation.
He said that the Cabinet has already directed the FBR for not to file reviews against the decisions of the FTO with the High Courts. After strongly pursuing the FBR, the Board has issued instructions to the field formations to avoid frivolous litigation with the FTO, he added.
Nazim Saleem, Advisor (Sales Tax) said that the FTO office launched an aggressive outreach campaign to create public awareness about the role of FTO office which is none other than providing speedy and cost-free justice to aggrieved taxpayers/general public. As per the directions of FTO, the Advisors in FTO Secretariat, Islamabad, and its Regional Offices conducted 115 seminars/sessions with the concerned Chambers of Commerce & Industry, different Trade bodies, Tax Bars, and colleges/universities compared to 76 such seminars/sessions in the year 2022.
In order to facilitate taxpayers and the general public to register complaints with the FTO office, a state-of-the-art automated Complaint System (COMSYS) for online registration of complaints was also introduced.
Besides, the complaints can also be made through WhatsApp and email swiftly. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) was also requested to instruct the Cellular Mobile Operators (CMOs) for disseminating the following message to their clients. Different telcos have sent above message to 117 million clients/mobile phone users.
Consequent to above mentioned efforts of PTA, almost 60,000 calls were received in FTO office asking different questions regarding functions and objectives of FTO office and modes of filing complaints. Such calls numbering 80,000 were also received on FTO’s WhatsApp number.
A helpline has been established in FTO Secretariat, Islamabad to facilitate the aggrieved taxpayers and help out the general public in order to guide them about the modes of filing of complaints.
The Revenue Division has been responding positively on the recommendations of FTO and has accordingly improved some of its systems by issuing SOPs/Circulars/Orders including the SOPs for De-Registration of NTN/STRN of deceased taxpayers, refraining from fictitious litigation, SOP on code of conduct for the anti-smuggling officials while dealing with public for interception/detention of suspected/smuggled non-customs-duty- paid (NCP) vehicles. Likewise, on the recommendations of FTO consequent to Own Motion Investigations, FBR has issued a simplified mechanism of return filing and tax payment for salaried individuals and pensioners.
FTO office is committed to rescue taxpayers/public on their legitimate complaints against tax officials and system which undermines their legal rights through maladministration ultimately leading to financial corruption.
