Maladministration: FTO asks FBR chief to take action against officials

ISLAMABAD: Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Dr Asif Jah has referred a case of maladministration involving senior FBR officials to Chairman FBR Rashid Langrial, directing him to examine the matter and take appropriate action.

The FTO has also instructed the FBR Chairman to ensure that no such lapse may occur in future, the FTO order added.

It is reliably learnt that in his findings in a public interest complaint “Waheed Shahzad Butt vs Chairman FBR and others”, the FTO observed that the conduct of the senior FBR officers was “unreasonable and reflected neglect, inattention, and inefficiency in the discharge of official duties,” which squarely falls within the definition of maladministration under the law.

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When contacted, tax lawyer Waheed Shahzad Butt informed that Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif must take serious notice of the situation and initiate a comprehensive overhaul of the FBR to maintain credibility and integrity of the country’s taxation system, he added.

FTO order stated: “Member-IR (Operations), Member-IR (Policy) and DG (IT & DT), FBR have failed to file para-wise comments to allegations of the complainant despite service of statutory notice. They also failed to attend hearing on such an important issue which was raised by the complainant before this forum. This attitude of senior officers is unreasonable and shows neglect, inattention and inefficiency in discharge of their official duties and squarely falls under maladministration.

Perusal of complaint and record shows that the complainant came up before this forum to seek direction to the FBR to remove the column “estimated current market value” which was statedly introduced on 23.09.2025 in wealth statement format of the tax return for tax year 2025 without following the due process and which created hardships for the tax payers.

“Prime Minister of Pakistan took notice of the issue and constituted a committee which recommended that the said column should be removed. Accordingly after the approval of recommendations by the PM, the said column was removed from the tax return form available on the IRIS,” FTO order added.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2025