The objective of Federal Tax Ombudsman
(FTO) offices is to provide a prompt and inexpensive way of addressing the
grievances of taxpayers against maladministration on the part of employees of
the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), an FTO adviser says.
“Around 1,807 complaints are handled by the FTO offices
across the country annually,” M Siddique, Adviser (Implementation and
Monitoring), said at a workshop on “Public awareness and advocacy about dispute
resolution mechanism of the Federal Tax Ombudsman” for medium and small-scale
enterprises on Tuesday.
Elaborating, Siddique said taxpayers could file complaints
with the FTO by courier, by hand, by email or online. The services of FTO
offices were free of charge and citizen-friendly and the complaints were
decided within 60 days, he said.
Form-A is available on the FTO website for lodging complaints
by the taxpayers and the form can also be obtained from the FTO offices and the
main secretariat.
Speaking on the occasion, FTO Director General Muhammad
Asif, while highlighting the historical perspective, said the ombudsman office
was established in 1983 in Pakistan whereas in 2000 an independent FTO office
came into being.
There are 150 ombudsman offices around the world.
Chamber of Small Traders President Zafar Iqbal Siddiqui
insisted that the number of taxpayers had increased by 0.4 million and the
revenue collection spiked 20%.
In spite of that, he argued, traders were being harassed
by tax managers and they were victimised whenever they went to the FTO or any
court of law.
The tax managers not only froze bank accounts but also
drew the amount by threatening bank managers, he said, adding the Intelligence
and Investigation Wing of the FBR also harassed the traders.
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