April 12, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 5, 1429

KARACHI, April 11: The city regional tax office has issued notices to taxpayers for the recovery of arrears pertaining to a period stretching to well over two decades.

Tax consultants, however, described the notices as ultra vires because under the law it was mandatory upon taxpayers to maintain records for a period of only five years.

However, apart from issuing tax notices for the recovery of arrears the tax officers are openly approaching taxpayers under one pretext or the other. Tax consultants consider these moves as tactics to intimidate the taxpayers.

The notices give taxpayers only a week to respond and also direct them to bring all past records pertaining to arrears demand.

A tax practitioner Najmi told Dawn that such notices were being widely issued by the RTO to the taxpayers and said that these notice were not in conformity with the law.

He said that the first and foremost question arises on what basis the tax officer had created tax demand if he was seeking evidence from the taxpayer, which could also help the department to streamline its records.

However, he said lately, there had been some sudden change in the modus operandi of the tax collectors, who have started issuing all sort of notices to tax-payers. Mr Najmi said this was a clear departure from the well-defined parameters of keeping minimum or no contact with tax-payers.

He said that for the last several years, tax collectors surely stayed away from the taxpayers and the corruption was also reduced to a greater extent. But owing to reasons best known to the FBR, the tax collectors have again resorted to old tactics of intimidation.

One such notice issued by taxation officer Abdul Qadeer Abbasi of Unit-III, Refund and Collection, and made available to Dawn, used threatening language and threatened the taxpayer with strict action in case of non- payment

Another tax consultant Rizwan Ahmed said,” Now-a-days tax notices of all sorts were pouring in our offices but they are mostly ultra vires.” Citing an example, he said, recently the tax department issued notices to corporate taxpayers to file their statements quarterly and six monthly, whereas the FBR portal does not provide this facility and there is provision only for filing of monthly and annul statements, he added.