Dar accused of delaying tax refunds

[arafay]

ISLAMABAD: The federal tax ombudsman has accused Finance Minister Ishaq Dar of deliberately inflating revenue collection figures for painting a rosy picture of the national economy before the International Monetary Fund.

Dar directly controls the release of taxpayers refunds with an aim to inflate revenue collection in front of the global lender, states the report commissioned by the FTO Office.

The report also casts doubts over the authenticity of the total outstanding tax refunds, which, the industry people say, have crossed Rs270 billion while the finance minister puts them at Rs200 billion.


he FTO had constituted a seven-member committee, headed by Advocate Dr Ikramul Haq, on a complaint filed by the Pakistan Apparel Forum chairman about delays in issuance of tax refund cheques by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

The actual problem leading to delay in payments of refund claims is a political matter and is being handled by the finance minister and the prime ministers adviser, the report quotes one of the participants of the committee meetings as saying.

The tax authorities, the report states, are showing gross collection of taxes whereas it should be the net collection after deducting the amount of refunds. The approval to issue the refund cheques is being obtained from the finance minister, it said.

The report noted the non-FBR participants of the committee meeting unanimously agreed the FBR officials were deliberately delaying the processing of refund claims and issuance of refund cheques of already-issued refund payment orders (RPOs) to show revenues on the higher side to appease the IMF at the cost of exporters.

The findings once again expose the governments claim of meeting its revenue collection targets. From July through May of the outgoing fiscal year, the FBR claimed it had collected Rs2.64 trillion. The annual collection target for this fiscal was Rs3.104 trillion.
The IMF imposes a quarterly ceiling on the FBRs targets, and the failure to achieve these targets also led to a couple of mini-budgets in the outgoing fiscal.

Shoaib Ahmad Faridi, Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industrys GST and Refund Sub-Committee chairman, complained the normal claims were being processed without any consideration of date and queue.

According to the sales tax refunds data provided by the FBR to the investigator committee, about 77,891 sales tax refund cases worth Rs111 billion were pending clearance. This includes 13,120 cases worth Rs32.9 billion, where RPOs have been issued.
Pakistan Apparel Forum Chairman Jawed Bilwani had also complained to the FTO that the FBR had created serious liquidity problems for exporters by not issuing refund cheques.


The committee has recommended the FBR must update data regarding blocked refunds on its website on monthly basis starting from August this year. The data must contain disclosure of accumulated pending refunds as of end July, refunds added during the month, refunds paid during the month and the closing balance at the month-end.

The FBR, the committee said, should expeditiously pay all outstandingly refunds where electronic-RPOs have been issued. It asked the FBR to send monthly report about delayed refunds, compensation accrued and paid to the FTO.

On November 26 last year, Dar told the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance that outstanding refunds stood at Rs200 billion. Never before, was this mammoth quantum of refunds ever admitted officially, the report noted, recalling the remarks of Dar.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 19[SUP]th[/SUP], 2016.

 

[arafay]

ek baat maani paregi wese. pmln ne sab sectors ko baraber loota ha. ye news exporters ki khani ha inkay 270 billion munshi daar rok ke betha hua ha takay budget deficit kam dikhaya jasakay.

yehi 270 billion ager exporters ko wapis miljaye tu wo naye orders ki tayyari shuru karain jis se rozagar bhi peda ho aur pakistani ki tezo se girti hui exports ko bhi barhaya jasakay.

lekin is munshi ko economics ki ABC nahi malum. Isko IMF ne jo budget deficit ka target diya hua ha usko ye accounting ke zariye pura kar raha. matlab iski top uskay sir aur uski topi iske sir.

 

[fbrinsider]

I am working in FBR so I want to tell you about huge figure fudging by FBR done on instructions of Ishaq Dar and Haroon Akhtar (Advisor to PM on Revenue).

The previous Chairman FBR Mr Tariq Bajwa was Shahbaz Sharif's man. But in September 2015, even he refused to show false higher revenue collection figures when the revenue was actually declining. So he was transferred out in November 2015 and a new team was brought into FBR. This team consists mainly of weak pliable officers who are just interested in their posting: Chairman Nisar Khan is well known for his weak, do nothing administration. Rumours are that he consumes lot of charas in evening parties The Member Inland Revenue OperationDr Irshad Khan managed to get 3 years seniority (from 13th Common to 10 Common), on dubious grounds of working in army as doctor. He is also well known for figure fudging and lying, and shady evening activities. Member SPRS (Statistics) Dr Iqbal is under investigation for forging signatures on his PER to get promotion. He managed to get his buddy Mr Amjad Tiwana, posted as Special Assistant to Chairman. Story about these two is that in budget of 2014, they made huge money by giving undue benefit to mutual fund companies. Member Admin Majid Qureshi is well known as a weakling who gave clean chit on directions of Advisor and Chairman to many corrupt officers involved in missing containers, illegal refunds, and other fraud cases.

So it was surprising to see immediately after the new team came in, without any great efforts, suddenly the revenue collection was magically meeting and exceeding targets. The only efforts are letters of congratulations to favourites, which are widely publicised on social media. Work is done as usual in the offices, but targets are magically achieved.

Just to create confusion, in a few months over 500 officers were shuffled for no reason. Junior and weak officers were placed in OPS (own pay scale) in important posts Obviously this was to remove seasoned officers who object to wrong figures. The weak and pliable ones either do not know what is going on or are to scared to say anything.

No reconciliation of revenue was done with State Bank in last 8 months. Pending refunds grew from Rs. 100 billion to 280 billion. In this way, there is actually a shortfall in revenuecollection by Rs. 250-300 billion. The nation and IMF are being fooled that FBR has finally met the target after 10 years. This is just a political stunt by the government to avoid criticism during the Panama leaks scandal and to get the final tranche of loan from IMF.

I hope the concerned quarters takes action, so that this fraud with the nation is stopped.