Low allowances, salaries ‘Overworked mid-career FBR officers prefer to opt for foreign missions jobs’

LAHORE: The overworked mid-career officers in the field formations Inland of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) have preferred to opt for foreign missions jobs keeping in view the stress out of workload in the Board against low allowances and salaries.

They said majority of the aspirants appearing for the trade and investment offices in the foreign missions belong to the FBR.

However, the high-ups both in the IRS as well as the Board have disagreed with the impression, saying that majority of the mid-career officers prefer to appear in exam for posting in foreign missions as a right to look for better future prospects. It cannot be linked to the working atmosphere in the Board, they added.

According to the insiders, 50 percent of the opportunity in the foreign missions was availed by the FBR officers last year. The Institute of Business Administration (IBA) had recently conducted examination for the posts in foreign mission on behalf of the ministry of commerce and trade.

When asked about the rising trend of leaving the IRS for other options, one officer, requesting anonymity, said majority of the mid-career are officers are facing stress, as the Board keeps exerting pressure through setting unrealistic targets for them.

They said majority of the mid-career officers are wildly involved in conducting tax audits of taxpayers to meet targets. They said creating fake demands has become a norm of the day, most of which are challenged and turned down by the courts. Accordingly, they said, the officers carry out desk audits while relying on the tools available within the system to create fake tax demands. So much so, they beg tax consultants and chartered accountants of taxpayers for letting them impose tax demands and get them strike off by the courts later on.

According to sources, the phenomenon of creating excessive demands has become popular in the field formations over the last two years. Cases of taxpayers were examined on merit earlier and most of them were cleared if no major legal contravention was found.

They said the Board was seeking daily, weekly and monthly reports of fake demands from the field formations on a regular basis.

On the other hand, they said, their salaries are uncompetitive vis-a-vis other departments, adding that mid-career offices in some departments were drawing two times higher salary than those working with the Board. Also, they said, the facility of house requisition allowance was available only for the major cities. However, there is no such facility is available at smaller stations, as only a minor house rent is clubbed with the salary package.

However, the Board high ups are of the view that there was no such pressure on the officers in the field formations and demands are being created as per law and nothing was being carried out unlawful.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022