Federal Tax Ombudsman, Dr Mohammad Shoaib Suddle has said that the FTO has refunded an amount of eight billion rupees to taxpayers during last year against the 7 billion rupees in 2010. More than 195,000 cases had been cleared in 2011 and the cases ratio gradually increased during last three years, he added.
Addressing at Sarhad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (SCCI) during his visit to Peshawar here on Wednesday, he said that they had received just 50 complaints from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2011, while only Rs 4 million refunds cases addressed of the province out of total of Rs 8 billion. He elaborated that most of the cases from KP were related to refunds including 30 pertaining to income tax, 10 each from custom and sale tax. He said the FTO had designed a plan to strengthen its regional level offices across the country. He said the FTO was the most important department and extended maximum relief to taxpayers.
SCCI president Afan Aziz, executive members, industrialists and businessmen were present on the occasion. Dr Suddle said the applications method and procedure was very simple and easy to entertain complaints on war-footing basis. He informed that more than 10 regional offices with recent addition of Ombudsmen Office on "Women Harassment" had been established throughout the country. There are three types of ombudsmen working in the country, relating to tax, banking and insurance, he added. He said that FTO had affiliated with International Ombudsmen Institute (IOI).
Regarding the achievements and performance of FTO, he said the average days to decide a complaint was exceptionally brought down from 117 to 60 days due to collective work and firm commitment. He added that the department had also enhanced ratio of refunds cases with increasing amount from 7 billion to 8 billion rupees with 36 per cent average growth during last two year.
He said that FTO decisions in 760 cases were got implemented by the Federal Board of Revenue during 2011, as compared to 331 cases in 2010 and 170 cases in 2009. Federal Ombudsman said FTO had implemented maximum cases during 2011 with four time high rate as compared to last two year. He added that FTO had set target to achieve all pending cases in current fiscal year.
The FTO said the last year 34 refund cases were sent for representation and none of them were in favour of the department which showed the quality of the ombudsman office. He also suggested that SCCI should prepare monthly statements with regard to pending refund to redress complaints and give immediate relief to taxpayers
Regarding the reservations and proposals of members of SCCI, he asked the business community to form a sub-committee to take up all issues with them in order to make efforts for its amicable solution. He assured that the business community genuine demands and reservations under the FTO domain would be addressed on priority basis.
Addressing on the occasion, SCCI president Afan Aziz said that despite the turbulent situation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the tax-turnover remained high, adding that the people were the patriotic and continued their business in spite of unfavourable environment in the province. He further said that RTO Peshawar tax-recovery ratio had increased despite extending of PM fiscal relief package to business community of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. However, he pointed out that RTO was facing immense lack of required staff.