FTO asks FBR to devise procedure to curtail NTN fraud

LAHORE: Federal Tax Ombudsman Abdur Rauf Chaudhry has ordered the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to devise a fool proof Standard Operating procedure (SOPs) with the consultation of National Response Center for Cyber Crimes (NR3C) wing of Federal Investigation Authority (FIA) to stop the use of fraudulently prepared documents in Pakistan Revenue Automation Ltd (PRAL), a statement said on Monday.
The FTO further ordered the FBR to devise a policy to validate all the National Tax Numbers (NTNs) on the PRAL database through a system of biometric verification and conduct an inquiry to determine how and by whom the defective NTN certificate was issued.
The FTO issued these orders on a complaint by a taxpayer Ali Mansoor Khan through his counsel Waheed Shahzad Butt against unauthorized CNIC access and unilateral issuance of NTN.
The FTO through its order July 7, 2015 asked the Secretary Revenue Division Islamabad to implement the findings of the FTO within 60 days after issuance of the orders.
The complaint prayed that PRAL Faisalabad allegedly, unilaterally issued a NTN in his name on March 14, 2010, when he had not submitted any application and later on August 25, 2011, modified the same on the basis of dubious documents.
Furthermore, the amended NTN certificate showed him, wrongly, to have been associated with one M/s Al-Khawan Enterprises Faisalabad.
The complainant said he is a resident of Model Town, Lahore and has never been employed in Faisalabad or conducted any business there, alone or in partnership with anyone.
The complainant accidently discovered that he was already on the FBR income tax roll when he enquired about applying for a NTN certificate after getting a job in a Lahore based construction company executing various contract projects within Punjab, including the ‘Ring Road’ project where he is currently employed as Project Manager.
He alleged that with the collusion of corrupt elements, the tax offices of Faisalabad and Lahore have been deliberately issued NTN and STRN certificates of individuals without their knowledge after getting their CNIC and other details through various sources, including monthly/annual statements of withholding taxes.
These victimized individuals were not on the tax rolls of the departments until now. The NTN and SRTN were made out without their knowledge and were not delivered to the actual person in whose names they had been made out but retained by these corrupt departmental elements to be subsequently used in various schemes like bogus income tax and sales tax refunds etc.
The complainant stated that he adopted due course of law by informing the wrongdoing to the CEO of PRAL, but no action was taken. Later, he also lodged an FIR against the culprits but in vain which compelled him to approach the FTO office.