FBR bars field staff from sharing info with FIA

Says only focal persons can do it after approval

LAHORE: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), through a notification, has barred its entire field staff from sharing any information with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), saying that only the focal persons could do it after getting approval from the board, The News has learnt.

The FBR has recently rejected three requests by the FIA Lahore and Multan sent to Customs officials, seeking record of their ongoing inquires on the ground that the FIA and the FBR had entered into an agreement that the agency would get required information only through designated focal persons. The Customs officials have told FIA investigators in black and white that they have to contact the FBR for getting any kind of information.

Sources with the background knowledge of the whole affair told this correspondent that the issue of appointing focal persons had come to surface when Karachi FIA Director Shahid Hayat on December 8, 2014 wrote to the FBR chairman, requesting him to appoint a focal person to provide record of an ongoing inquiry.

Responding to Shahid Hayat’s request, the FBR chairman appointed Muhammad Tanvir Akhtar, chief (Management), FBR, and Sarwat Tahira Habib, chief (Management), Customs, as focal persons to process FIA requests for the provision of information required in connection with various investigations.

The FBR chairman also highlighted the procedure needed to be adopted by FIA officials to seek Board’s approval including (a) no direct correspondence may be made with the field formations of the FBR by the FIA (HQ) or any of its subordinate offices, (b) matters relating to Inland Revenue (Income Tax/Sales Tax/Federal Excise) and Customs may be referred to the focal persons, (c) the information requisitioned must be supported by court orders, (d) no blanket information may be requisitioned, instead specific information relating to relevant taxpayer/tax official may be sought, (e) the post-investigation report about FBR employees may be shared, enabling FBR to initiate appropriate action under the law, (f) financial information regarding tax fraudsters may be shared with the FBR so that the loss of revenue caused to the national exchequer could be retrieved.

Interestingly, the whole correspondence was solely related to cases and inquiries of tax frauds, income tax issues, etc as there was no mention of other cases relating to Customs, duty evasion, clearing issues or corruption of Customs/FBR officials, etc. 

On March 19, 2015, the FBR referring to the subject letter issued a notification and barred its entire filed staff including that of Customs from sharing any information directly with the FIA.

The FBR stated that only the chief (Management), FBR, (for IRS-related matters) and the chief (Management), Customs, (for Customs-related matters) could share anything after the approval of the board. 

“The FIA shall approach the board for provision of specific information. The board shall examine the request under the mutually-agreed SOP and issue necessary directions to the field formations,” reads the notification.

After the notification, the Customs authorities have rejected one request of Multan FIA Deputy Director Babar Shahryar and two requests of Lahore FIA Assistant Director Ch Ijaz Ahmed.

The FIA top hierarchy was taken by surprise over the recent developments. Senior FIA officials in Islamabad told The News that no agreement existed between the FIA and the FBR regarding any SOP needed to be adopted for cooperation with each other in cases/enquiries.

They claimed that the issue would be taken up with the board as their ongoing cases and inquiries had been affected badly. They also claimed that refusing to share information with the FIA was tantamount to an act against the law as Section 94 of the Code of Criminal Procedure 1898 was very clear on that count.

Citing Section 175 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC), the FIA officials said that refusing sharing the required information could also lead the officials concerned to jail or fine as well.

When contacted, the recently-appointed FIA Director General Muhammad Amlesh Khan said he did not have the knowledge of any SOP agreement between the FIA and the FBR as he had taken the charge only a few days back. But, he said, any illegal thing would be rectified at the earliest. “Law allows us to get the required information from any department,” the DG remarked.

Talking to The News, FBR spokesman Dr Muhammad Iqbal confirmed that the notification was issued on the ground of December 8, 2014 correspondence with FIA Director Shahid Hayat. He said the notification of March 2015 was issued on the assumption that the FIA agreed with the FBR on the appointment of focal persons.

To a question, he said if there was any illegality or misunderstanding in issuing the notification, it could be resolved mutually. “We have no issue in settling this matter with the FIA. We are ready to sit with them to keep things moving in the right direction,” Dr Iqbal said.