Home »Business and Economy » Pakistan » Tax-related pending cases: PAC decides to approach top lawyers

  • News Desk
  • Apr 27th, 2017
  • Comments Off on Tax-related pending cases: PAC decides to approach top lawyers
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Wednesday decided to hold a special meeting of the panel with eminent lawyers of the country to help Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) pursue tax related pending cases in various courts of law.

The PAC, which met here under the chairmanship of Khursheed Ahmed Shah to review audit paras of the FBR of 2013-14, unanimously decided to invite Senator Aitzaz Ahsan, Chairman Senate Mian Raza Rabbani, Law Minister Zahid Hamid and Speaker National Assembly Ayaz Sadiq along with top lawyers of the country to formulate a way forward for the tax collecting agency to get vacated stay orders in the different courts pending for many years.

Member Committee Shafqat Mehmood said hundreds of billions of rupees were not coming into national kitty due to stay orders issued by various courts to tax defaulters. He said if a person is liable to pay Rs 1 billion to the national kitty as tax, he hires a top lawyer by paying Rs 10 million fee to him and get a stay order from the court which in many cases prolongs to even decades.

He said that land grabbers are free to grab state land worth hundreds of billions of rupee as they can get stay orders from courts easily. Similarly, the tax defaulters are also obtaining stay orders and avoid paying taxes. He urged the superior judiciary to make a mechanism for early deciding the tax related cases, saying that Rs 300 billion tax cases have been pending in different courts for many years.

Mehmood Khan Achakzai said that stay orders for decades show weakness of the Parliament and the state. He proposed the Parliament to make necessary laws on the subject so that no one can misuse the law for his personal advantage. Senator Azam Khan Swati said that seven months ago the Senate of Pakistan thoroughly deliberated upon a bill regarding checking the long stay orders from courts and now the National Assembly must take up the issue so that the bill could be made a law.

Member committee Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed while showing grave concern over the sale of massive smuggled items, said that the government should have put certain checks on Afghan transit trade as the country's imports consist of those thing which are never used in Afghanistan. He said all these items are supplied to Pakistani market and as a result the country is facing multibillion rupees financial losses.

Sheikh Rasheed said that the government must take all appropriate steps in making China-Pakistan Economic Corridor an economic corridor instead of just a corridor for exporting and importing Chinese goods to other countries. Chairman FBR Dr Irshad briefing the committee on the issue of smuggled and counterfeit cigarettes in the country said that authority is making all-out efforts to check the menace. He said that recently an illegal cigarette factory was traced in Bunir district of KPK and sealed. However he admitted that still smuggled cigarettes are available in the country but the quantum has been reduced significantly.

The FBR chief also informed the panel that corruption is not tolerated in the Board and if corruption charges are proved against any official, he/she is terminated from service. He revealed that the tax collecting agency has dismissed 42 officials of various ranks from service on corruption charges.



the author

Top
Close
Close