NAWABSHAH, April 14: The income tax department has seized all the bank accounts of the district council Nawabshah under section 140 of the new income tax ordinance for failing to pay an amount of Rs281,714.

Default was detected under two heads of the district council by the income tax department.

The district council made payments to several contractors without National Tax Number after deducting income tax at the rate of 5 per cent but were supposed to deduct 7 per cent as they were non-National Tax Numbers.

The income tax department detected a default of Rs189,756 under section 52/86 of the income tax ordinance 1979 and put an additional tax of Rs22,958 under section 86.

Monthly and annual statements were also not filed with the income tax department by the district council during 2001-2002, for which a penalty of Rs69,000 was imposed on the district council under section 108(1)a of the Income Tax Ordinance.

Iqbal Ahmed Sheikh, income tax officer, Nawabshah, told this correspondent that notices, besides several reminders, were sent to the officers concerned but no payments were made.

He said that the income tax department had seized all the accounts, i.e. at the National Bank of Pakistan (main branch), the UBL (Masjid Road branch), and the HBL (Mohni Bazaar branch) of the district council on April 4, 2003, under section 140 of the new Income Tax Ordinance, which would be reopened only after payment of the default amount.

On being contacted, the district Nazim, Faryal Talpur, claimed that she had no information about the report.

However, the manager, National Bank of Pakistan, Javed Sheikh, confirmed that the account was frozen on the directives of the income tax department.

POWER CUT: The electricity of the office of the EDO, education, and 40 schools was disconnected by the Hesco on Monday due to non-payment of bills amounting to Rs2.58 million.