Amendments to the Finance Bill: RGST chief claims his proposals were altered

Recommendations about dividing Inland Revenue Dept were allegedly changed.

ISLAMABAD: The dissenting notes made by a Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) official to proposing amendments to the Finance Bill for the current fiscal year approved were allegedly altered before they reached the table of the chairman FBR, by using correction fluid, The Express Tribune learned on Wednesday.

According to the documents available with The Express Tribune, a senior FBR official has requested the FBR chairman to order an enquiry into the alleged changes made in his remarks by some FBR official(s).

In a letter wriiiten to the chairman FBR, the chief of FBR’s Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST), Iftikhar Qutab, termed the response of the Inland Revenue member to his earlier note on the unfair use of authority and alleged corruption in the Inland Revenue Department as illegal.

In his three-page note, Qutab requested the FBR chairman to form a committee of senior officials to investigate the matter.

Qutab maintained in his letter that he wrote the original note for “raising a separate police organ of the Inland Revenue Department.” He alleged that the note was altered later using correction fluid.

“It is not clear how and why my marking was changed with fluid and why it was not allowed to reach at your kind table. Such unauthorised interception itself warrants honest inquiry at some fair/impartial senior level,” he wrote in his letter to the chairman FBR.

He said that the notice from the Inland Revenue Department addressed him as Inland Revenue commissioner. However, he said he wrote the note as RGST chief when he had the additional charge of the Inland Revenue member.

He said that the Inland Revenue member was not part of the RGST and, therefore, he could not seek explanation from the RGST chief. He termed the notice illegal and urged the FBR chairman to withdraw it.

He said that he wrote the note in the larger interest of the Inland Revenue Department to improve its performance.

Qutab said that he believed the Inland Revenue member acted mala fide, and his aim was to conceal the operational drawbacks in the joint working of income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty.

In his note, Qutab had called for dividing the Inland Revenue Department into two categories. The first category, according to his proposal, should have the Inland Revenue member (income tax) while the second category should have the Inland Revenue member (sales tax and federal excise duty).

Sources told The Express Tribune that complaints from the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI), All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) and different trade associations had increased significantly after the establishment of the Inland Revenue Department.

They said that taxpayers were facing increased problems because of the department. They added that adjudication orders were being passed against taxpayers which contradicted with tax laws.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2011.