The Directorate-General, Intelligence and Investigation (DGI&I) of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), Karachi, on Tuesday nominated four Inland Revenue officers for alleged involvement in multibillion rupees sales tax refunds fraud. According to sources, the DGI&I in its challan, submitted in Customs Court, nominated four Inland Revenue officers--Ali Akbar Tunio, Khan Muhammad, Arshad and Azizullah Soomro--on charge of misconduct in the multibillion rupees fake sales tax refund fraud.
They said the department has also included the names of 100 fake companies, reportedly involved in this scam. Sources said that these units, which were earlier asked to give evidence and produce documents pertaining to the sales tax refund claims, failed to produce the same. Hence, the names of these units along with the said Inland Revenue officers were included in the challan.
They said the board had notified several items as zero rated items on supply and import to facilitate the business community but these registered units had misused the same and plotted this multibillion fake sales tax refund scam. They said these registered units were not manufacturing units but they had shown taxable sales and got refunded billions of rupees sales tax from national exchequer.
DGI&I during initial investigation came to know that these units had provided financial shock of over Rs 6 billion to the national kitty. The department is going to finalise the inquiry of some 3500 units in this scam and these units with the connivance of sales tax officers had fabricated this tax fraud. Sources said they anticipated the amount involved in this scam would cross Rs 10 billion, and added that more challans would be submitted soon.