Misuse of system by officials: ATIR directs FBR to take steps to safeguard integrity of e-system

ISLAMABAD: Appellate Tribunal Inland Revenue (ATIR) has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to disable back-dated uploading of orders by Inland Revenue officials and take immediate corrective and preventive measures to safeguard the integrity of its electronic system to control misuse of the system by the tax officials.

In this regard a two-member bench of the ATIR has issued an order against the Large Taxpayer Office (LTO), Islamabad and accepted appeal of the taxpayer (fertilizer company).

According to the order of the ATIR, Chairman, FBR has been directed for issuance of appropriate instructions to Member (Legal), Member (IT), and DG (IT), FBR, to ensure that no individual is permitted, in future, to manipulate the FBR electronic web portal (https://iris.fbr.gov.pk/login).

FBR Chairman is further advised to initiate a thorough and independent inquiry to determine how, by whom, and under what lawful authority the FBR electronic system ‘IRIS’ allowed an Inland Revenue Service Officer to modify, replace, or alter the text of an assessment order after it had already been issued and uploaded on the system, FBR added.

The tribunal has issued policy-level safeguards to the FBR. The IRIS development team should disable back-dated uploading of orders; and replacement of orders using the same barcode.

The FBR is directed to take immediate corrective and preventive measures to safeguard the integrity of its electronic system, including the implementation of mandatory immutable audit trails, comprehensive system logs, and effective accountability mechanisms, in order to prevent the recurrence of such incidents in the future.

A dedicated “Rectification Module,” directly linked to the provisions of Section 221 of the Ordinance, should be integrated into the IRIS system.

Procedural Safeguards: The IRIS system should lock any assessment order once uploaded, and no replacement thereof should be permissible.

Any clerical or apparent error should mandatorily be corrected only through the issuance of a notice under Section 221 of the Ordinance.

Complete system log details, including upload timestamps and any attempted modifications, should be made visible to taxpayers.

Administrative Safeguards: A two-tier review mechanism should be introduced for assessment orders prior to their uploading on IRIS.

An error-reporting module should be incorporated within IRIS to flag incorrect or irrelevant uploads.

Assessing Officers should be provided regular training on the proper use of IRIS and compliance with prescribed legal procedures.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025