KARACHI, July 19: The ongoing reforms of the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) ran into sang owing to a flaw in defining jurisdictions and responsibilities of various departments and zones of income tax regions. This has led to an increase in incidents of the harassment of taxpayers and has opened more avenues for corruption.

According to insiders, the zones of local income tax offices owing to a flaw in CBR notification are overstepping each others jurisdictions causing harassment to taxpayers. Some of the tax zones of the Southern Region of Income Tax and Corporate Region of Income Tax, Karachi are working in a haphazard way due to a flaw in the CBR notification defining their jurisdictions, powers and responsibilities.

Citing an example, the sources said, presently zone A & B of Income Tax are issuing notices to taxpayers but zone C whose primary function is of facilitation to taxpayers is being asked to do the assessment of tax returns. Consequently, in the absence of clearly defined jurisdictions and responsibilities different income tax zones are shifting their responsibility on each other.

Since taxpayers’ information is being collected from different sources it results in duplication in collection of data which ultimately results in sending more than one notice to a taxpayer.

The sources said that the tax authorities normally collect information with regard to taxpayers from different sources such as utility companies, mobile phone companies, chambers and trade bodies but in the process they forget that information gathered from different sources could be duplicated. As a result of this several notices are issued to a taxpayer by same zone or circle of the income tax department.

Such information is mostly collected to know if a person is a tax return filer or to carrying out assessment and deduct concealments the duplication of authority and notices causes a lot of harassment to even honest taxpayer.

All these problems are being confronted by the tax department because the Data Processing Centre (DPC) is not properly equipped and most of the information collected by various circles and zones could not be verified. This only because the CBR did not took care of such issues which are a major hurdle in the reforms agenda being funded by the World Bank.

Another big problem being confronted is some of the courier services hired by the tax authorities have find a novel way of making extra money. Sources said that the courier services do not normally serve the notice under one pretext or the other and even take illegal gratification for doing so. Many a time when same notice is served by the tax department it finds the taxpayer as well as the address.

Presently over Rs0.1 million is being paid per month by Southern Region of Income Tax to a courier service to deliver notices to taxpayers.

A visit to the Southern Region of Income Tax, which is temporarily housed in Hashoo Auditorium, will reveal startling facts about its working conditions. As the Regional Tax Office is presently being setup in the Income Tax Building, Atta-Turk Road, under which all tax offices -- Medium Taxpayers Unit, Southern and Corporate regions which are spread in three places, Gulistan-e-Johar Zone, Income Tax Building and Hashoo Auditorium will be merged.

The staff and officers are using broken furniture with no cross ventilation because the Hashoo Auditorium has been built as centrally air-conditioned building. There is no power generator and many a time staff and officers were trapped in the lifts causing heart stroke to some victims.

Above all the working is being carried out on type-writers or hand-written notices and correspondence are issued and it seems that the tax authorities have gone back into stone-age. The affairs are so much messed up and the working environment has been totally destroyed and officers and staff members are mostly seen having disputes over jurisdictions, the sources said.