Large Taxpayer Units (LTUs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs) have started issuing notices of audit under computerised balloting of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) without giving evidence of such balloting under section 214C of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001.
In a letter to FBR Member Taxpayer Audit Hafiz Muhammad Anis here on Friday, Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) has raised the issue of audit notices through computer balloting issued to the registered persons without providing evidence of selection by the Board. The KTBA is surprised that the audit notices under computerised balloting has been served to the taxpayers without fulfilment of legal formalities.
According to the KTBA letter dated February 17, the registered persons have received various notices issued under section 214C of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 from Regional Tax Office (RTO) as well as Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU). The notices under section 214C of the Income Tax Ordinance can only be issued after the selection of person by the Board for audit through computer balloting, the RTOs and LTU are issuing notices without giving evidence to the taxpayers, which is creating unnecessary confusion/harassment. In order to eliminate harassment and to increase the confidence of taxpayers, kindly make the Computer Ballot result public and provide it to media, Tax bar Associations and Post it on your website as well, so the same will be implemented in accordance with the provisions of the law in just and fair manner.
In view of the above, the KTBA has recommended to the FBR to direct all the RTOs/LTU to withdraw the cases manually selected for audit prior to the Computer Balloting, as it is unfair to proceed the cases which have selected manually in the presence of result of Computer Balloting, as in past FBR always withdraw cases selected manually after Computer Ballot, KTBA added.