Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has attached bank accounts of District Municipal Corporation (DMC) to recover tax dues amounting to over Rs 100 million. According to FBR sources, the Regional Tax Office (RTO)-III has raised a tax demand of over Rs 100 million against DMCs and issued an order under section 161 of Income Tax Ordinance 2001. Later, the tax department against the non-compliance has frozen the bank accounts of DMCs under section 140 of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 for tax recovery.
Replying to a question, sources said that although the bank accounts did not have nil balance, no recovery had been made as the DMCs had started making commitments for paying tax liabilities in instalments. Furthermore, they said the tax department had now de-attached the bank accounts of the DMC East and West after collecting partly payments of around Rs 2 million each.
Similarly, the DMC Malir and DMC central had also promised to arrange partly payments, shortly, they said, adding that dues were accumulated for the tax period 2011. Meanwhile, the sources in DMCs confirmed the attachment of its bank accounts saying that deliberation was underway and hoped that all bank accounts would be released soon. They also claimed that tax demand raised against the DMCs was exaggerated, saying they had started deliberation with tax department to reconcile the tax demand of over Rs 100 million.
Needless to mention, the DMCs had earlier dumped tones of garbage before the office of RTO-III located at Gulistan-e-Johar when similar action was taken for the recovery of Rs 750 million in last May. Now, the bank accounts of DMCs have been attached at the time when a 100-day city clean campaign has been launched by the Karachi Municipal Corporation. However, the official sources claimed that the recovery exercise was not meant to create hurdles in a 100-day city clean campaign, saying the said action was aimed at collecting pending dues in order to meet its revenue target assigned for second quarter of current financial year.