Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, minister of finance, revenue and economic affairs said that the government stand-by programme (SBA) would continue IMF on its own terms and conditions. He was speaking at a seminar on Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) performance study launch, which was organised by Transparency International (TI)-Pakistan, at a hotel here on Saturday.
He said the government is required to obligate international commitments for trade and investments, hence the IMF would be continued but on Pakistan''s own terms and conditions. He said the annual budgetary target of Rs 1588 billion would be achieved and the masses would notice some new positive changes in coming days.
Dr Hafeez further said the withdrawal of duties and tax exemptions was aimed at eliminating the scope of corruption in the public sector enterprises. He said that the government was trying to make the taxation mechanism quite simple by retaining just two taxes ie ''direct and indirect taxes''.
He said that we have to voice for reducing the size of the cabinet for the masses as the same is escalating the government expenditures, which led to high borrowings. He said the government would provide Rs 7 billion additional funding to the provinces while the Benazir Income Support Programme would also be continued next year.
He said the government would not put further burden on the existing taxpayers to attain its next annual budgetary target, saying that they are striving to bring new sectors into tax net. For the purpose, 700,000 individuals were identified, of them, 71,000 were served notices. He said that no tax is leviable on food items, education sector, agricultural produce and health sector in this budget. Moreover, the finance minister said that people should pay taxes for better infrastructure and utilities. He said that people with authority should take action and only then institutions could bring about a change in the situation. He said the FTO could play a vital role in eradicating irregularities, redressing taxpayers'' grievances and in broadening the tax net.
Earlier, chairman TI-Pakistan Syed Adil Gilani while sharing the salient features of the Citizen Report Card Study conducted by TI-Pakistan on the performance of the FTO said the FTO has emerged as the most transparent public sector organisation in Pakistan with 90 percent stakeholders'' opinion of ''no corruption in the FTO''.
He said another achievement of the FTO is that last year it took only 67 days average time from date of filing of complaint, communicating between FTO, FBR, complainant and adjudication of the complaint, and 89 percent cases were decided in favour of complainants. He said the purpose of such study is to make the public sector organisations aware of their shortcomings with the help of stakeholders'' feedback, and replication by other departments.
Meanwhile, FBR Member Inland Revenue, Khawar Khursheed Butt said the findings of the Report Card Study would also provide great help to FBR in understanding the shortfalls. Former President Income Tax Bar Association, Karachi, Abdul Qadir Memon said the tax ombudsman is a source of great relief for the taxpayers as there was no one to listen to their grievances. He said the FTO office has proved that justice could be provided without delay.
Former Justice Haziq ul Khairi said the tax ombudsman is the need for every state to maintain transparency in public sector organisations and this concept has proved to be very helpful in countries like Pakistan. Federal Tax Ombudsman Mohammad Shoaib Suddle said that he found the concept of Citizen Report Card very helpful in determining the right direction for the organisation. He said that although the FTO office is being run in the most transparent manner, there is still room for improvement.
He said the complaints lodged between 2005 to 2008 period were resolved by the end of 2009 while the complaints filed during 2009 were resolved by 31 March 2010. President FPCCI Senator Haji Ghulam Ali lauded the efforts of the revenue body to facilitate the business fraternity by issuing a record number of refund cheques in current fiscal year. Later, former Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin said that more strategies are being introduced in the world to overcome the performance deficit in public sector and this report is one such reliable method. He said this report would benefit the FTO and all other related departments.