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Friday March 29, 2024

‘FBR’s discretionary powers to be removed in Finance Bill 2017’

By our correspondents
April 29, 2017

KARACHI: Senate Standing Committee on Revenue has assured the business community that laws related to discretionary powers of tax officials will be removed through Finance Bill, 2017.

According to a statement issued by Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on Friday, a delegation, headed by KCCI, met the senate committee in Islamabad to discuss the problems caused by the discretionary powers of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). The delegation discussed the powers acquired by the FBR officials over the years, which were being used by the officers of Inland Revenue for harassment and extortion of registered taxpayers.

After extensive deliberations, chairman, Standing Committee, Salim Mandviwala, assured the representatives of the business and industrial community that their issues and grievances would be taken up in the parliament, and discretionary powers, which are the root cause of corruption and harassment would be removed through the Finance Bill for the year 2017-18.

Mandviwala directed the FBR chairman to stop raiding the premises of taxpayers and income tax return filers.  “Any raids which are necessary should only be authorised by the FBR chairman and FBR member-operations in cases where a substantial amount of evasion is detected and based on hard evidence,” KCCI statement quoted the senate committee chairman as saying.

Mandviwala took serious note of the complaints and invited all chambers, associations and affected parties to attend the meeting of the standing committee for a discussion in the presence of FBR officials to decide the future course of action. The chairman of the standing committee expressed dismay and concern over the large number of complaints received from representatives of the business and community on the misuse of discretionary powers by FBR and a very disrespectful treatment of taxpayers. Businessmen Group vice chairman Haroon Farooki, who is also the convener of the action committee of all chambers, highlighted the core issues of harassment of taxpayers which has resulted in declined numbers of taxpayers and failure to broaden the tax base.  He pointed out that taxpayers had been made withholding agents for collecting advance tax on behalf of FBR which was causing hardship to the registered persons.

He said taxpayers lacked required tools, capacity and manpower to collect taxes from the entire supply chain, comprising many unregistered persons. As a consequence, the withholding agent became liable to pay tax on behalf of non-filers, he added. The FBR chairman Dr Irshad Ahmad defended the position of the FBR and denied the charges of corruption in the tax offices.

On the occasion, Senator Kamil Ali Agha and Senator Ilyas Bilour stated that they themselves have suffered extortion at the hands of IR officials. KCCI president Shamim Ahmed Firpo, Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Abdul Basit, Islamabad Chamber president Khalid Iqbal Malik, KPK Chamber president Haji Muhammad Afzal, and other representatives of numerous chambers of commerce and industry as well as trade associations attended the meeting.