It is clarified that the Secretary Finance and the Chairman FBR were summoned by the PAC on 01.01.2014. The FBR did not make any statement before the PAC but only responded to some very specific questions that were asked by the PAC. One of the questions was that whether it is a fact that the tax at source is deducted from the salaries of Parliamentarians. The Chairman responded to the aforementioned as “this is a fact”. However, it was explained to the PAC that despite this every person having income above the threshold was required to file an IT return. Another question that was asked was whether agriculture income tax was to be collected by the FBR’s and it was explained that this tax was to be collected by the Provincial Government as per the Constitution. On another question it was explained that the record of the IT as per IT Ordinance is confidential.
FBR would however like to clarify that as per sub-section (6) of section 216 the Federal Government is empowered to publish the particulars and the amount of tax paid by a holder of a public office as defined in the National Accountability Ordinance, 1999.
FBR takes strong exception to the negative profiling of its entire workforce in some sections of the print media and would like to clarify that like any other organization it has a mixed lot of human resource. It has its fair share of officers/officials of integrity and competence. In the last six months concerted efforts have been made to post officers of known integrity at critical positions. These steps have been appreciated by the media also.
Shahid Hussain Asad
Member IR-Policy/ FBR’s Official Spokesperson