The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Dr Muhammad Shoaib Suddle has said his office has put in place an enabling strategy for capacity building of its Secretariat in Islamabad as well as its regional offices in the country to efficiently and effectively redress complaints of taxpayers aggrieved by mal-administration of tax employees of FBR and Revenue Division.
He was talking to Governance Advisor of DFID (a UK-based development research organisation) David Gray, who called on him here at his office the other day. Dr Suddle said his office has been constitutionally mandated to provide relief to the aggrieved taxpayers who have suffered from the mal-administration of the FBR officials.
He said as scope of FTO Office is very large, it needs to proactively conduct research to identify the systemic problem areas to be able to remove causes of mal-administration as much as to strengthen the legal and institutional space for aggrieved taxpayers seeking fast and inexpensive redressal of their grievances.
Presently, he said, the office of FTO Pakistan does not have a well-established IT infrastructure to operate an online link with taxpayers to identify and analyse the areas where it needs to monitor implementation of its recommendations. "We also require building an efficient assessment mechanism to come up to the aspirations of aggrieved taxpayers so they have full confidence in the justice delivery system of our country," he further observed.
David Gray appreciated the vision and spirit behind establishment of the office of FTO Pakistan and said once this office starts working to its full capacity; it would help expand tax base; improve investors' confidence; reduce cost of doing business and thus strengthen the country's GDP.-PR