The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has initiated criminal investigation against an official of the Regional Tax Office (RTO) Multan as per directions/recommendations of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Dr Muhammad Shoaib Suddle. It has been reliably learnt here on Monday that the FTO had punished an official of RTO, Multan, who was accused of taking bribes from taxpayers and asked the Chairman NAB to initiate criminal investigation against them.
In this connection, the NAB Punjab had already issued order to the concerned persons to attend inquiry under section 19 of the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999. The NAB is investigating the accused Inland Revenue Officer of RTO Multan on the recommendations of the FTO.
According to official documents, M/s Umer Trading through Javeria Sohail Amin, M/s Jeddah Traders and M/s Zamindara Corporation of Gagoo Mandi, Burewala through Sohail Amin registered their complaint No 04-06/LHR/IT(03-05)22-24/2012 to the FTO, Regional Office Lahore through their counsel Waheed Butt, Advocate against RTO Multan officials. The case is first of its kind where the FTO Dr Muhammad Shoaib Suddle has forwarded the copy of his findings/recommendations to Chairman NAB for initiating criminal investigation into corruption. At the same time, the FTO has also directed the FBR to take disciplinary action against the relevant RTO-Multan official involved in demanding bribes from the taxpayers, sources said.
These complaints are against illegal and arbitrary demand of tax (Rs 21,418,998/-) ostensibly raised under Section 161 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, extortion of Rs 200,000 as bribe and raising a further demand for additional tax of over Rs 3,000,000. According to the findings of the FTO, although the complainants' grievance to the extent of illegal tax demand has been redressed due to the intervention of the Federal Tax Ombudsman, the alleged acts of omission and commission committed by official of RTO Multan tantamount to maladministration as defined under Section 2(3) of FTO Ordinance2000.
The FTO has recommended the FBR to take necessary corrective/disciplinary action as provided under Section 13 of the FTO Ordinance against the relevant officials, and give compliance report within 30 days. On merit, the Dept first defended the action under Section 161 of the Income tax Ordinance, 2001 as justified, denying that the Complainants had been discriminated against in any manner but during the course of complaint proceedings successor Commissioner IR himself vacated/deleted the whole demand of tax under section 122A of the Ordinance well before disposal of complaints by the FTO.
This contention of the Complainant ultimately proved correct, when, during the course of investigation, the Deptt vacated the orders passed by Inland Revenue Officer. The concerned IRO initially justified the tax demand raised by him, as also his refusal to rectify the tax demand. However, when confronted with the evidence that he himself at one stage had advised the Commissioner Inland Revenue (Saleem Raza Asif, and his successor, Basharat Ahmad Qureshi) that the tax demand raised under Section 161 of the Ordinance was not tenable in law and needed to be struck down, IRO acknowledged that the tax demand was indeed bereft of any objective basis and need to be vacated, FTO order added.
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