FBR launches Medium Taxpayers Office

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has launched a dedicated office to deal with medium taxpayers as part of its ongoing reforms program to facilitate and improve revenue collection, officials said on Thursday.

The FBR recently re-designated the Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU)-II Karachi as Medium Taxpayers Office (MTO), which started functioning under the new name from September 01, 2020.

An official at the MTO said re-designation of the office was aimed at facilitating taxpayers engaged in small scale businesses.

The LTUs were already assessing companies with huge volume, the official said, adding that the LTU-II was established for the assessment of small scale companies with lower turnover.

The FBR is in the process of another tax reform funded by World Bank and these recent changes are result of this reform, the official said.

In its previous program i.e. Tax Administration Reform Program (TARP) such changes were introduced. Under this program a medium taxpayer unit was set up at income tax building in Karachi. However, for unknown reasons this office was converted into a regional tax office.

The FBR after changing the name of LTU-II Karachi to MTO Karachi also issued jurisdiction order for the office assigning cases of corporate entities and individuals to the office.

The MTO has been assigned all the cases of builders and developers (corporate/non-corporate) falling in the territorial jurisdiction of RTO Karachi, RTO-II Karachi, RTO Hyderabad, RTO Sukkur, and RTO Quetta.

Besides, over 1,000 cases have also been assigned to the office for assessment of income tax, sales tax, and federal excise duty.

The official said a large bunch of cases had been shifted from LTU Karachi to the MTO for assessment. These cases also included high net-worth individuals and chief executives/directors of corporate entities, he added.