KARACHI: Expressing concern over steep fall in exports, the Federal Tax Ombudsman Mushtaq Ahmad Sukhera on Friday assured exporters that his office would take necessary action under the law, including exercising suo motu option, against Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for not addressing the irritants and hurdles in the way of increasing exports.

After patiently listening to value-added textile sectors’ exporters’ complaints related to delay in refunds payment, zero-rating, audit etc at the PHMA house, the FTO sounded quite critical about the FBR’s and its field formations which he said “are often seen to be grilling compliant taxpayers, whereas no action is seen against those who escape the tax net.

He further said that people at large have no trust on the revenue board, and, in a recent meeting with income tax commissioners, this point was raised by him that there is a trust deficit between FBR and taxpayers.

It was also suggested that field formations of FBR should focus on those who are not in the tax net and stop chasing those who are already paying tax.

Therefore, he said, FBR has been asked to reduce its dependency on withholding tax because it had never been proved how much tax was collected by withholding agents and how much was deposited in the national kitty.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2018