LAHORE – Federal Tax Ombudsman Dr Shoaib Suddle has said that all pending claims from 2005 to 2009 have been liquidated. The delayed refunds of Rs six billion have been issued to taxpayers and there are no pending cases older than three month.
He was addressing the officials of the Inland Revenues Service, Large Taxpayers Unit, and Customs Collectorate at Regional Tax Office here on Saturday. Suddle acknowledged that though the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) office had to look into the issues of maladministration, it was primarily the responsibility of the officials of the department to curtail incidence of maladministration. The FTO’s role was to provide support and complement it in this role.
He emphasised that the role of tax collection was a fundamental function of the state, while officials of the department should work hard to collect due taxes when the country is at such a critical juncture in time. He pointed out that the FTO was in place not to harass the Tax Department but to provide support with regards to redressing genuine grievances of the taxpayers. The Federal Tax Ombudsman said that maladministration was a colonial tradition adopted by the foreign rulers to subjugate the natives. He stated that through a good and fair tax administration the revenue collection could be increased significantly by gaining the confidence of the taxpayers. Suddle said that the FTO office was being automated with a full functional web portal already launched, he claimed that soon taxpayers would be able to file their complaints online.
