The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will conduct a comprehensive withholding audit of the National Highway Authority (NHA) for recovery of the less-paid withholding tax after detailed scrutiny of accounts.
In this regard, Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has directed the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to conduct withholding audit of the state-owned organization. The FTO has issued instructions to the FBR through an order.
FTO order revealed that the complainant approached this office to seek justice against discriminatory application of withholding taxes. The complainant sated that government functionaries including Corporate Tax Office (CTO), Islamabad and National Highway Authority in violation of provisions of Sections 236A, 160, 161, 163 and 205 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 read with Rule 43 of the Income Tax Rules, 2002 are not properly deducting withholding taxes at prescribed rates and thus deprive revenue to the public exchequer.
The complainant further stated that one year payment of Rs. 27,100,455,965 under one single head (Section 236A of the Ordinance) pertaining to tax period of July 2022 to June 2023 remained unchecked by CTO Islamabad which proved meaningful incompetency/inefficiency of the WHT monitoring wing of CTO Islamabad.
The complainant prayed that Chairman FBR may be directed to initiate strict lawful proceedings against public servants representing tax offices at Islamabad and NHA for their violation of provisions of law to deprive the public exchequer without any lawful authority and necessary/lawful SOP/Instructions may be issued to the FBR field formations to keep their eyes open where there is chances of misuse of authority by WHT agents specifically in govt/public sector organizations.
The one year payment of Rs. 27,100,455,965 under one single head remained unchecked by the officers of CTO Islamabad
The FTO order directed FBR to ensure that CCIR concerned conducts comprehensive withholding audit of NHA for the tax year 2023 and recovers short tax after detailed scrutiny of accounts.
Source: Pro Pakistani