ISLAMABAD  -  The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has addressed the grievanc­es of the taxpayers by processing 8,963 cases with an implementa­tion status of 94.07% during 2023 as compared to 73.29% last year.

Furthermore, requests for refund claims to the tune of Rs17,742.16 million were also de­cided in 2023 and the due amount was paid to the aggrieved taxpay­ers by the FBR.

This was highlighted by the Federal Tax Ombudsman Asif Mahmood Jah, who called on Pres­ident Dr Arif Alvi and present­ed FTO’s Annual Report 2023, at Aiwan-e-Sadr here on Wednes­day. The Federal Tax Ombudsman briefed the President about FTO’s overall performance and its key initiatives to facilitate taxpayers and expeditiously address their grievances against maladministra­tion of tax officials. He stated that concerted efforts were undertak­en to enhance FTO’s outreach by launching awareness campaigns and opening up regional offices in the country. He informed that honorary advisors had also been appointed abroad to facilitate overseas Pakistanis in the USA, Canada, Sweden, UAE, Hong Kong and the Philippines. 

He further said that FTO had ap­pointed leading businessmen as honorary advisors from various chambers of commerce and in­dustry to facilitate the business community. “To ensure prompt response against the maladminis­tration of tax authorities, a mobile App has been developed enabling aggrieved complainants to lodge complaints and check their sta­tus using mobile/smart devices”, he stated. He apprised that highly informative training sessions had also been conducted to enhance the professional skills and exper­tise of Ombudsman institutions in the country.

While appreciating the perfor­mance of FTO, the President said that FTO had done an excellent job by processing a record num­ber of cases and providing re­funds worth Rs17,742.16 million to taxpayers. He remarked that the institution of FTO needed to be further strengthened as it was providing free-of-cost and prompt justice to aggrieved taxpayers. He called for using the latest technol­ogy for seamless service delivery and timely disposal of taxpayers’ complaints to improve the coun­try’s tax regime. He said that FTO had effectively contributed to pro­moting good governance in the country.

It is worth stating that the FTO is a quasi-judicial forum, mandated to diagnose, investigate, redress and rectify any injustice or malad­ministration done to a person by the functionaries administering federal tax laws. It aims at enhanc­ing the overall satisfaction of the taxpayers and strengthening their trust in the system.