The Senate Standing Committee on Finance on Thursday decided to write letters to the President and Prime Minister to stop raids by the Federal Board of Revenue as representatives of various chambers and trade bodies alleged harassment by the tax authorities have been complaining regarding the demeanour.
The meeting of the committee was held under the chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwala. The committee recommended that the raids could only be conducted if authorized by the members operation FBR. It decided to write letters to Chairman Senate, Speaker National Assembly and the Finance Minister to inform them about the situation.
The committee was briefed by the representatives of chambers and trade bodies about the harassment due to the highhandedness of the tax authorities. They complained that tax men raid along with the media and try to create an impression that they have caught some thief. The tax authorities harassed the honest businessmen more than the tax evaders. They recommended checks on arbitrary powers of tax men. They opposed the direct withdrawal from bank accounts and termed it as harassment of extreme proportions.
Representative from the Karachi chamber recommended that the powers should be vested with the regional tax office instead of tax mandarins to stop its misuse. He stressed that instead of new tax proposals, the approved proposals should be implemented.
The representatives complained that businesses were already affected due to the slowdown in the economy and the third degree methods employed by FBR had further complicated the matters for them. They stressed that the chambers should be taken on board by the FBR.
Chairman FBR Dr Irshad assured the committee that they would act as per the directions of the parliament. He assured that all the complaints would be looked into and if some officer had transgressed his authority, appropriate action would be taken against him.
He said that nearly 322 raids were conducted that lead to the recovery of billions of rupees. He said that notices were not harassment and everybody would have to pay his due share of taxes.
