Recruitment of advisers: Former FBR member submits policy recommendations to FTO

ISLAMABAD: A former member of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has submitted a set of policy recommendations to the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO), including over the recruitment of young advisers at the FTO Office.

In this regard, Sajjad Ali, a former Income Tax Member of FBR, has written a letter to the FTO Office with detailed recommendations for policy changes at the FTO Office.

According to Sajjad's policy recommendations, the FTO Office needs re-appraisal of the recruitment policy, especially the recruitment of advisors to the FTO is indispensable to include fresh blood such as barristers and LLM qualified from foreign universities, to re-model the organisation.

Sharing other key policy recommendations, the former FBR Member recommended the FTO that the entire existing system for the selection of cases for investigations by the FTO may be revisited to harmonise it with the true spirit of the existing law. At least, modest structural reforms are essential in the opinionated structure of the organisation.

Former FBR Member further highlighted the aims and purposes of legislation and enactment of the FTO’s Ordinance may be identified for the pursuit of bringing behavioural changes in the organisation. The areas cover improving good governance; safeguarding businesses and taxpayers from imperiousness of the tax Collectors; avoidance of costly and long-drawn process of orthodox litigations; speedy redressal of grievances of the businesses and taxpayers outside the orthodox court system.

The FTO should also try to mitigate systemic corrupt practices and corruption from the prevailing administrative system of assessment, collection of taxes; issuance of refunds; and appeals structure and system with respect to filing; decision of appeals.

An objective SWAT analysis of the prevalent policies and functioning is inevitable for the proper working of the organisation, Sajjad maintained.

The legal fraternity has hoped that the platform of FTO was created for the modern scientific worldview, suggesting that there exists a need to study FBR as objectively as one can discarding its prejudice toward it. Despite the fact that the major bottleneck is that taxpayers do not define the FBR by their reactions or judgments, it is the FBR which defines the taxpayers. This policy objective needs a reappraisal by the FTO being the major component of Troika to lead from the front.

The generally accepted basic rules for writing a reasoned judgment/order may also be brought to the knowledge of those persons who basically draft the orders for the FTO that reasoning should be intelligible and logical; clarity and precision should be the goal; use of strange and difficult words and complex sentences should be avoided. The judge/Authority of the judgment or order cannot use his personal knowledge of facts in a judgment/order, specifically, where adversarial legal system is adopted and the findings; decision should be precise and specific.

Finally giving his opinion on the reported judgment, 2022 PTD (Trib) 1202 (Federal Tax Ombudsman), in Pakistan Tax Decisions, July 2022 titled, Jahanzaib Khan verses Secretary, Revenue Division Islamabad, Sajjad observed that the order is an extra-jurisdiction, it is absolutely not the domain of the FTO to investigate the “tax evasion” and probe into un-disclosed assets without determining mal-administration on the part of tax functionaries. The order has failed to determine the mal-administration on the part of the FBR employees. Which being essential pre-requisite for invoking jurisdiction by the FTO, he added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023