KARACHI, July 28: Federal Tax Ombudsman Justice (retd) Saleem Akhtar has informed businessmen that his office disposed of over 5,300 cases of all sorts of malpractice of taxation authorities last year.

"An amount of over Rs5 billion had also been refunded to the private sector last year," the FTO said while launching a book entitled "Tax Referee - A commentary on the law and practice of Tax Ombudsman" here on Wednesday.

Mr Akhtar said the leadership with changed mindset could improve the working of the Central Board of Revenue. He informed the gathering that more than 120 countries had established the offices of the tax ombudsman. "In Pakistan, this was the demand of the private sector to check the maladministration of the tax collection authority."

The ombudsman said that the working of the FTO was being recognized internationally and Bangladesh this year had decided to appoint an FTO in line with Pakistan.

Earlier, FPCCI president Riaz Ahmed Tata termed the FTO office a basic institution for building the confidence of businessmen in the overall tax collection and judicial evaluation system of the country. "The response of the government, its functionaries and tax collection agencies towards the FTO should be based on sincere implementation of the decision of the FTO."

He said the FPCCI had always raised its voice in favour of making the FTO office more effective and considered it an administration of justice in relation to the imbalance of tax laws.

The FPCCI chief said it had been a long demand of the trade and industry to separate the tax judicial system from the tax collection for complying with the requirement of the institution.

Mr Tata informs the participants that all over the world the execution of law depends on the principle of bona fide and mala fide. "But unfortunately, in our country the ignorance of the law is exploited by the administrators of law, and the rules and regulations which are enacted for the progress of society become its own stumbling blocks.

In this context, the office of the FTO is addressing the grievances of the taxpayers because tax collectors are still behaving in the same pattern in which their colonial rulers used to act," the FPCCI chief added.

FPCCI vice-president M.A. Jabbar said the public acceptance of the institution of ombudsman had created the demand for the establishment of an ombudsman in the banking sector and had also resulted in legislating the provision of district ombudsman to ensure the fair practices in productive utilization of funds in public sector development programmes.

Mobeen Ahmed Khan, the author of the book and an adviser to the Sindh Ombudsman, introduced his book and stated that it was an admitted position that genuine and transparent tax machinery had failed to take roots in Pakistan.

"Various factors are attributed to this scenario. Some blame the tax bureaucracy and some to the undue pressure for achieving the tax target. The unethical complicity of the taxpayers and tax assessors is also responsible for the same," he added.

The book highlights the measures the FTO through his decisions has suggested to streamline the working of the various departments engaged in tax generation.