ISLAMABAD: Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Dr Asif Mahmood Jah has said the taxpayers are fully confident to obtain their legitimate/admissible income tax and sales tax refunds of billions after intervention of the FTO’s office with satisfactory compliance by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Talking to Business Recorder at the FTO Headquarters on Thursday, Dr Jah stated that the delay in payment of refunds was a major area of concern for the FTO office. The automation in refund payment has not been able to change mindset of relevant tax officials in the field formations. The overall percentage of complaints against the FBR has considerably increased during first five months of 2024.

The number of complaints registered against maladministration of FBR has reached 4,754 during January-May (2024) against 3,270 complaints in January-May (2023), reflecting an increase of 1,494 cases. In January-May (2022), the FTO office had received 2,210 complaints, he added.

The taxpayers are well aware that the FBR would be forced to issue refunds due to timely intervention of the FTO. The FBR issued over Rs 13 billion refunds last year following timely orders of the FTO office. The FTO Office never directs FBR to sanction refund, but issues instructions to process refund as per law. It is the responsibility of the FBR to legally process, determine and sanction the admissible amount of refund to the taxpayers.

To a query on implementation of the FTO’s recommendations by the FBR, Dr Jah stated the FBR’s was timely implementing most of the FTO’s recommendations including refunds payments. The FBR took FTO’s recommendations very seriously and issue refunds after due process as per law.

In this regard, the FBR was forced to implement around 95 percent of the FTO’s orders during 2023 due to strict standing operating procedure (SOP) being followed by the FTO office.

Dr Asif Jah stated the timely implementation of the recommendations was fundamental to the effectiveness of the institution of FTO. Once the FTO issues recommendations, the Revenue Division is bound to inform him about action taken on the same or the reasons for not complying with the recommendations.

In order to streamline the procedure for implementation, an SOP has been issued by the FTO Office which is strictly followed by all offices of FTO. The implementation of recommendations has significantly improved due to relentless efforts by Advisors and Staff. During the year 2023, over 94% cases have been duly implemented as against 73% during the year 2022, FTO added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024