E&T Office: Staff caught pocketing token tax payments

MRA asks E&T director (Region C) to get a case registered against DEOs with the Anti-Corruption Establishment.

LAHORE:

Two data entry operators (DEOs) at the Excise and Taxation (E&T) Office could face a criminal case with the Anti-Corruption Establishment after they were found to have kept a token tax payment of Rs56,000 for themselves.

The matter came to light after Haji Muhammad Khalid, the owner of a Mazda truck, complained to Muhammad Azhar Tariq, the Motor Registration Authority (Tie Up), that he had contacted DEOs Imran Aslam and Adeel Rafiq and paid them Rs56,000 in lieu of token tax dating back to 2004, according to a letter available with The Express Tribune.

The MRA conducted a preliminary inquiry and found that Aslam and Rafiq, who were not authorised to update token tax records, had kept the money and not updated the tax record. When Khalid complained, the DEOs changed the computer record to show that he had paid his taxes. In the letter, the MRA has asked the E&T director (Region C) to get a case registered against the DEOs with the Anti-Corruption Establishment.

The MRA also wrote that he had obtained “spy information” suggesting that other key punch operators (KPOs) and DEOs had embezzled large sums of money in this way. He said he had sought a list, from the computer section, of clerical staff who had been updating token taxes even though this was not their job.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17^th, 2013.