The operations at the Collectorate of Sales Tax and Federal Excise (Enforcement) and Audit Collectorate remained suspended on second consecutive day due to staff protest against National Accountability Bureau (NAB) references filed in accountability court.
Officials from both Collectorates wore black arm bands and chanted slogans in the compound of Enforcement Collectorate (EC) against the NAB references, which claimed that over 80 taxmen were involved in sanctioning huge refund claims during the fiscal period of 2001 to 2004 on fake invoices. Due to suspension of work activities at both Collectorates large number of taxpayers who came to process their cases failed to get their problems solved.
Members of an action committee told Business Recorder that work would not be restarted until authorities would not give assurance to the officials involved in processing refund claims through STAAR that this sort of action would not be taken by NAB again.
They urged concerned authorities to resolve the issue, besides taking positive measures. "Officials in both Collectorates will observe strike till the NAB is not restrained from harassing taxmen by filing references against them," they said.
In view of curbing corruption in the taxation mechanism, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has already established vigilance wing, which internally audits such cases and has authority to take legal action against responsible persons, they said.
They, however, termed NAB action as unfair against the officials of EC in the existence of vigilance wing. They said that the protest was aimed to safeguard their rights and job, as they could be deprived of their livelihood by alleging in such cases recurrently.
They demanded of the high authorities to facilitate them, and added that authorities should provide assurance to all EC officials that this illegal act would not happen again, which creates panic and mental stress amongst all staff members. It may be mentioned that sales tax officials in last August observed strike in protest against the detentions of their six colleagues over the same charge by NAB.