ISLAMABAD: Tax experts have alleged that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) implements court orders in favour of the taxpayers only after receiving calls from the courts for personal attendance of FBR officials.
When contacted for comments, a tax expert explained that there is a Legal Wing in the FBR headed by a Grade-21 member but it appears that apart from mindset, the workload is too much due to the multiplicity of litigation that court orders are not implemented until court calls for personal attendance of FBR officials.
Tax expert explained that mostly, taxpayers are reluctant to initiate contempt of court proceedings as the local department has the tendency to teach a lesson to the taxpayer for going to the court, which are also very lenient with the FBR officials.
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He said that time and again, the superior judiciary has lamented the working of the FBR and there is hardly any improvement. Rather, most of the time, relevant orders of the court giving some direction to the FBR are not in the knowledge of the concerned officers as either there are no SOPs or the same are not followed.
As per a recent instance, the Lahore High Court Multan Bench, in its order dated October 3, 2023, in writ petition no14614/2023 directed the chairman FBR to decide the issue of income tax refund under Section 170A pending with the FBR within 30 days and to regulate the proceedings directed the petitioner to appear before the chairman FBR on October 16, 2023.
However, when Usman Shaukat advocate/AR of the petitioner, attended the chairman FBR office his secretariat was not aware of the court order and even on providing a certified copy was asked to write an application seeking an appointment.
Though not required by any procedure, the needful was done but despite follow-up and lapse of two weeks, the requisite appointment has not been given.
The expert explained that section 170A regarding the electronic processing of income tax refunds was inserted through the Finance Act, 2021 and after the lapse of more than two years, not a single income tax refund has been issued by the FBR through a similar process of sales tax refund stands streamlined.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023