ISLAMABAD: Taking notice of thousands of vehicles being cleared on illegal documents in connivance with the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials under the amnesty scheme, Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) Dr Shoaib Suddle has constituted inspection teams and directed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to seize all relevant records of the tax department, The News has learnt. “We have asked the FIA to seize all relevant record and send it to the FTO Secretariat immediately,” an official communication of the FTO sent out to FIA states, a copy of which is available with The News. After receiving complaints that thousands of vehicles were stuck up in Tokyo, UAE and other destinations and were brought into the country through illegal routes such as Chaman via Afghanistan and cleared through the amnesty scheme, the FTO constituted inspection teams for investigation of maladministration by tax officials in implementation of amnesty scheme under SRO 172 (1) 2013. Each team will consist of an officer of FTO and a designated FIA officer supported by other officers and staff. The FTO asked FIA to designate suitable officers for the purposes and immediately get in touch with the relevant officials of the FTO office to proceed further in the matter including seizure of relevant record of concerned collectorates. “As regards, Customs stations at Multan, Sukkur, Hyderabad, Gwadar and Sust, the concerned FIA officials may seize the relevant records and send it to the FTO Secretariat immediately,” FTO’s directive to FIA stated. The official communication sent out by the FTO office to DG FIA states that the FTO decided to constitute inspection teams under sections 17 and 23 of FTO Ordinance. The officers of the FTO establishment who have been assigned the task include Justice (R) M Nadir Khan, Adviser (Quetta), Manzoor Hussain Kureshi, Adviser Karachi, Haji Muhammad, Adviser Sialkot, Muhammad Munir Qureshi, Adviser Lahore, and Sardar Irshad Shaheen, Adviser Peshawar. Sources said the FTO took strong exception that the country was being run on the basis of amnesty schemes which were allegedly misused and tax authorities have been failed to prevent such practices. They said it came into their knowledge that thousands of vehicles were bought from Tokyo, UAE and other countries which would be brought through illegal routes and then cleared through amnesty scheme. “Instead of giving them amnesty why the FBR did not seize non duty paid vehicles,” sources in the FTO questioned?On the other hand, the prime minister has granted extension of one week for clearing non-duty paid vehicles as this scheme had expired on March 31, 2013. The FBR so far collected Rs9.8 billion in shape of taxes for regularising 34,000 vehicles all over the country under this scheme.It was the estimate of the FBR that there were around 100,000 non-duty paid vehicles in the country and they managed to regularise more than one third such vehicles. The FBR sources said they imposed unified rate for clearance of vehicles and analysed that average collection was standing in the range of Rs300,000 on the basis of different models of different vehicles. On the directives of the Supreme Court, tax authorities had identified 100,000 illegal vehicles with duplicate registration books, of which around 3,000 of local and foreign origin, including 550 land cruisers, 300 Mercedes, 1,500 Vego and 2,500 Corollas were seized. During the campaign against non-custom paid vehicles, the FBR identified a person who has 618 vehicles registered in his name, including 590 motorcycles, cars and jeeps despite the fact that he does not have a national tax number (NTN).Majority of the vehicles bearing same chassis number were registered with various provincial excise and registration departments.
