ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Member Inland Revenue (Operations) Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar publicly admitted that the FBR has to file appeals against all cases won by taxpayers before tribunals, high courts and Supreme Court of Pakistan due to fear of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Auditor General of Pakistan.
During the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee held at the Parliament House on Friday, there are cases where we are sure to lose at the level of courts, but we have no option but to file appeals against all cases decided in favour of the taxpayers to avoid audit objections.
It is a general practice of the tax department to file appeal against all orders of the taxpayers despite the fact that the department may lost case in court. Taxpayers time and money is also wasted during futile litigation between the FBR and the taxpayers.
“We have to challenge all cases against taxpayers before all forums available including higher courts,” he said.
“We know that the NAB and the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) keeps an eye on the FBR. Therefore, we file appeal against all cases against the taxpayers”, the FBR Member said.
When Public Accounts Committee (PAC) objected that why FBR failed to settle audit objections of billions since 2010-11 to 2013-14, the FBR Member stated that most of these cases are under litigation in courts.
Some cases are pending in courts for the last 13-14 years.
He referred to many cases where AGP has raised audit objections of billions, but the cases have been decided by courts and audit objections stands deleted. In some cases, the FBR Member said that we already know that the cases of the tax department have weak legal grounds, but we have to challenge all cases in higher courts.
He said that every person file appeal before Commissioner Appeals against the orders of the FBR where tax demand has been raised. People exhaust all forums of appeal including Appellate Tribunal, High Court and Supreme Court till case is finally decided against them. Even people go to the forum of Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) against the FBR and Alternative Dispute Resolution Committees for resolution of tax disputes.
The FBR Member stated that it is not under the control of the FBR to force the courts to early decide tax related cases. “We cannot force the High Courts and Supreme Court to hear FBR’s cases on priority basis”, he said.
Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar suggested the PAC to engage chartered accountant or tax expert or expert lawyer during the meetings between the AGP and FBR to review audit paras. In most of the cases, low grade officers of the AGP are engaged in framing audit paras, having less knowledge of interpretation of law.
This would promptly resolve many policy and enforcement issues in question. This would also end unnecessary litigation in courts. Many issues of the AGP requires interpretation of law. The presence of tax experts in the audit meetings would reduce litigation in courts. The wrong interpretation of tax laws also creates embarrassing situation before the higher judicial fora. Therefore, the expert opinion of tax experts should also be taken during the meetings of the departmental accounts committee, he added.
The PAC agreed to the proposal of Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar and directed the AGP to engage tax experts in the departmental accounts committee meetings as well.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
