ISLAMABAD: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has asked the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) not to file writ petitions before the high courts against the FTO orders.

In this regard, the FTO has written a letter to the FBR chairman raising serious concern against the FBR’s practice of filing unnecessary representations before the president and also filing writ petitions in the high courts.

The FTO’s letter exposed serious problems in the FBR legal system of pleading cases in courts and the president of Pakistan.

FBR says has implemented 94.07pc FTO recommendations in 2023

The letter states, it has been observed that FBR files representations before the president of Pakistan without analysing the facts of the cases. An analysis made by this office shows that the President of Pakistan has disposed of 242 representations filed by FBR since January, 2023 till-date. Only six representations of FBR succeeded, whereas, rest were rejected/disposed of.

During the same period, the FBR has filed 192 fresh representations’ against the recommendations of Federal Tax Ombudsman. It has been noticed that representations are filed in cases of same nature which have earlier been decided and in which recommendations were upheld by the President of Pakistan. A large number of representations are being rejected with the remarks that FTO’s recommendations are unassailable. The agency has the lawful authority to decide the matter on its merit in accordance with the law and precedent on the subject, the FTO said.

In this regard, FBR had already framed SOP prescribing that every representation must be routed through Member-Legal and the line Member for properly analysing the facts and grounds of the representation. Such practice appears to have been discontinued as evident from ever increasing number of representations filed by FBR, the FTO maintained.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024