FBR’s absence from JIT may cause problems

ISLAMABAD: The Joint Investigation Team (JIT) probing the money trail of the ruling family has obtained tax records from the FBR since 1980 but the JIT does not possess any tax expert in its fold to understand and interpret the complex tax laws in a proper manner, it was learnt.

There is another controversy lingering on related to provisions of tax record during the proceedings of JIT as some tax record was missing from the files of tax machinery.

As a matter of fact, there is need to understand this issue fully and without any bias. For instance, the FBR does not possess the tax record of military dictator Zia Ul Haq for all those years in which he had ruled over this country from 1977 to 1988 because the record was not properly maintained and protected. Under the law, there was no binding on the FBR to keep such an old record for several years beyond its required limit under the tax laws.

There are certain conditions for keeping manual tax records such as in case of litigation the FBR would be bound to keep the record protected and safe. In normal cases, the record is not maintained in proper manner.

The JIT constituted on the directives of the apex court of the country preferred to exclude FBR’s member from it so now the investigators are obtaining all kinds of tax records of all the family members of PM Nawaz Sharif and others but they do not know where to go to establish their case on the basis of which they stand proved to be disqualified in court of law.

In any financial scam, it mainly revolves around tax records. There can be two types of cases framed on the basis of charges of corruption or tax evasion. So inclusion of any tax expert should have been part of the JIT for giving them more professional input instead of raising complaints about non cooperation from the department.

“Now the JIT has sought more tax record with new deadline of June 28, 2017, however, we have informed them that there are Eid holidays so records cannot be produced in the blink of an eye,” one top official of the FBR told The News here on Sunday.

There could be two reasons for excluding the FBR from the formation of JIT; one that this department is considered “manageable” by rulers. It is by and large a fact but no one should blame the tax machinery. Irrespective of political divide or whether there is a military or democratic regime in Pakistan, no one ever bothered to grant autonomy to the FBR. Therefore, expecting miracles from them will be unjustified.

The second reason is also cited by some top guns within the FBR as if any tax expert might have made part of the JIT, then there was no other solution but to make his stance as part of the proceedings keeping in view the limitation imposed by tax law of the land.

Under the law of the land, the tax machinery cannot go beyond five years in case of return filers and for 10 years in case of non filers.

There are instructions for maintaining manual tax records by the FBR. In case of litigation, the FBR will be bound to maintain tax records otherwise it will be difficult to keep massive records safe after 10 to 15 years.

In case of Lahore from where the ruling family belongs, the FBR found their tax records of many years from archives where 1.5 to 2 million files are rusting in manual shape. Fortunately, we retrieved that record otherwise the FBR might be plunging into deep waters, said another official.