Over 27,000 tax-related cases pending: Ord likely to reduce forums of appeals

ISLAMABAD: The government is likely to promulgate a Presidential Ordinance to reduce forums of appeals to decide litigation of over 27,000 tax-related cases pending at the level of Commissioner Inland Revenue (Appeals) across the country.

Sources said the proposed abolition of 50 positions of Commissioners Appeals would bind the Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue to dispose of pending cases within a prescribed time period. The forums of appeals available to taxpayers are expected to be reduced to facilitate taxpayers and speedy disposal of cases in litigation.

The drafting of the Ordinance is being done in line with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s vision that a tax amount of Rs2.7 trillion was still under litigation either in tribunals or in appellant courts. The government, he said, would try its best to recover this amount, the PM added.

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It is learnt that the drafting of the Ordinance is underway with the objective to reduce litigations of Rs 2.3 trillion in courts. Most of the cases are stuck at the first level of Commissioner Inland Revenue (Appeals). If the FBR would be able to deal with the litigation at the first level of appeals, the number of pending cases would be drastically reduced in the future.

Presently, two forums are available to the taxpayers before approaching the high court.

After removal of forum of commissioner appeals, the fact finding forum would be only ATIR which will reduce the time to dispose of case by appellate forums.

Under the proposed Ordinance, the ATIR would be bound to decide an appeal in the prescribed time period.

One of the proposals under consideration is to abolish the post of Commissioner Inland Revenue (Appeals) and hand over the cases to tribunals with the timeframe for deciding such cases. In this case, the government has to specify a timeframe for immediately deciding the cases pending at the level of appeals, sources said.

The FBR has made attempts to approach trade bodies, including chambers of commerce all across the country to utilise the Alternate Dispute Resolution (ADR) option to the optimum level. The aim was quick and amicable disposable of pending litigation cases. But the ADR seems to be not very effective in reducing litigation in courts.

In order to discourage frivolous litigation all chief collectors/director generals have been asked to forward the recommendation for filing of appeals/SCRAs after satisfying themselves to the legality/propriety involved in the questions of law being framed/finding to the board.

In order to discourage the filing of appeals/references on frivolous grounds, the field formations have been directed that only sound and specific questions of law, if they so exist, should be raised rather than general questions of law/grounds for filing appeals/ references, the FBR added.

The FBR has decided to conduct an in-depth analysis of all cases before the filing of references with the High Courts and the Supreme Court of Pakistan to end frivolous litigation in higher courts.

The FBR has also decided that only potential cases where strong grounds of appeals exist would be challenged in higher courts.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024