Daily Times

Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Advisor, Tariq Ahad Nawaz, Visited Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry on Monday.On his visit, while addressing the business community, he assured the business community to resolve their grievances to provide them relief.

He said that FTO Institutional Reforms Act 2013 was enacted to provide speedy and expeditious relief to the citizens by redressing their grievances to promote good governance. He stressed that business community should take benefit of the services of FTO.

Giving a presentation on FTO performance, he said that in 2017 (up to 30th June 2017) FTO received 1022 complaints out of which 892 were redressed. Similarly, in 2018 (up to 30th June 2018), 901 complaints were received out of which 772 were dealt with. He said out of 583 complaints, 457 were decided in favour with only 126 against. ”This result shows the useful role of FTO in addressing the genuine grievances of tax complainants.”, said Nawaz.

He added that FTO has developed a very simple complaint filing procedure to make it easier for any aggrieved person to file complaint, personally or through courier service, email, online or fax. He said all the complaints were promptly acknowledged by the FTO HQs or its Regional Offices online, email, by courier service or by hand. He asked business community to give their suggestions to further streamline the complaint redress system of FTO.

Speaking at the occasion, Sheikh Amir Waheed, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that for improving tax revenue, development of an easy and simple taxation system was the need of the hour. He said an efficient and effective Federal Tax Ombudsman would help provide speedy relief to complainants and would promote good governance, would reduce tax complaints, improve tax authority performance and would enhance tax revenue. He said billions of rupees of taxpayers were stuck up with FBR in tax refunds and stressed that FTO should play its role in release of such refunds that would help in addressing liquidity issues of taxpayers. Muhammad Naveed Malik Senior Vice President, Nisar Mirza Vice President ICCI, Zubair Ahmed Malik Chairman Founder Group, Baser Daud, Mian Shaukat Masud, Mian Muhammad Ramzan, Iftikhar Anwar Sethi, Khalid Chaudhry, Mian Khalid and others also spoke at the occasion and gave proposals for providing speedy and expeditious relief to aggrieved taxpayers.

Published in Daily Times, September 25^th 2018.