Forging ST returns of registered taxpayers: FTO directs FBR to take action against hackers

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to take action against hackers involved in forging sales tax returns of registered taxpayers to show fake sales/purchases to avail benefits to the tune of billions.

The FTO has issued directions to the FBR for immediate action against such unscrupulous persons.

The complaint has been filed against the Member IR (Operations) FBR and Director Intelligence and Investigation (IR), Karachi in terms of the Federal Tax Ombudsman Ordinance, 2000 (FTO Ordinance), allegedly for not settling the issue of deletion of fake purchases and sales uploaded in the annexures of the sales tax return of the registered person (RP) for the month of September 2023 by some unscrupulous persons.

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Briefly stated, the complainant is engaged in the business of paper and paper board products and is being assessed to tax at RTO-1, Karachi. The complainant noticed that their login password had been changed. They failed to recover the password as their mobile number and mail were also changed by the hackers.

The very next day, the complainant contacted the tax office, Karachi and the FBR official helped him update his mobile and e-mail followed by recovery of the password.

After the restoration of user ID and password when the complainant logged into their IRIS account they found that their sales tax return for the month of September 2023 had already been submitted, wherein, huge fake purchases and sales were uploaded in the relevant annexures.

The complainant requested immediate action to delete the fake purchases and sales from their sales tax return. The complainant has also pointed out that due to this issue, they have not been able to submit their sales tax return for the subsequent periods which has put his business at a halt creating hardship for them. Allegedly, the department did not take any action on their request hence this complaint.

Both parties were heard and record perused. Senior Manager PRAL was also called for his input. During the hearing, the PRAL official informed that the field officers of FBR/PRAL cannot delete these annexures. It was also stated that since these annexures were uploaded for the period of September 2023, in all probability the hackers would have benefitted from those fake claims, therefore, a detailed investigation is required in this matter by the Member (IT), FBR as well as by DG l&I, (IR).

It was pointed out that Member (IT) may facilitate to find out the machine (computer) ID through which the allegedly fake annexures were uploaded while the DG l&I(IR) would have a detailed investigation in the matter to unearth the entire chain of this alleged fraud and to find out the racket behind it.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023