ISLAMABAD: The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to rectify the rejection of an income tax refund claim filed by a Lahore-based taxpayer, observing that the decision was arbitrary and contrary to the principles of natural justice.<\/p>\n
In an order issued by Federal Tax Ombudsman Zafar Hijazi, the FTO asked the Commissioner Inland Revenue, Refund Zone, RTO Lahore, to reconsider the rejection of Noor Muhammad Bhatti\u2019s refund claim of Rs1.089 million for Tax Year 2024.<\/p>\n
The commissioner has been directed to provide the complainant an opportunity of hearing and decide the matter strictly in accordance with law within 30 days.<\/p>\n
According to the order, Bhatti had contended that he submitted all required documents with his refund application, including a duly sworn affidavit. However, the claim was turned down on the ground that the affidavit had allegedly not been submitted, despite the document already being available in the department\u2019s record.<\/p>\n
After reviewing the record, the Ombudsman noted that the same tax office had allowed the complainant\u2019s refund for Tax Year 2023 on the basis of identical supporting documents. The subsequent rejection of the refund for Tax Year 2024 was, therefore, found to be inconsistent and arbitrary.<\/p>\n
The FTO also observed that the taxpayer was not given an opportunity of hearing before the adverse order was passed, which was against the principles of natural justice.<\/p>\n
The tax department had objected that the matter should be taken up before the appellate forum. However, the FTO rejected the objection, holding that complaints relating to maladministration in refund cases fall within the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman.<\/p>\n
The order further stated that the department could have verified the taxpayer\u2019s electricity consumption details through the relevant distribution company instead of rejecting the claim on technical grounds without proper verification.<\/p>\n
The Ombudsman held that such conduct amounted to maladministration under the FTO Ordinance.<\/p>\n
The FTO has directed the FBR to revisit the refund claim after granting the complainant a fair hearing and submit a compliance report within 30 days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Federal Tax Ombudsman has directed FBR to reconsider Noor Muhammad Bhatti\u2019s Rs1.089 million refund claim after providing a fair hearing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20091,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20092","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/20091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}