Negligent FBR

A couple of years ago, a lady got a notice from the income tax department to explain why she had not registered with the department even though she had some income from dividends and shares. In Karachi, when such a notice is received, one knows that one will have to pay through the nose to get tax hounds off one’s back.

So even though she is not rich and barely earns enough to survive she had to pay a heavy amount under the table. Which makes me wonder why the tax authorities did not notice that a high-profile person claiming to be the owner of a multi-million dollar IT firm had paid income tax of only Rs22 and Rs26 for the past two years. Do these ‘hard-working’ people have nothing else to do than devising new ways to harass registered taxpayers? Why did they fail to notice that the IT firm did not file tax returns for the past two years? Before doing anything else the FBR should first take action against its own negligent officers.

Shakir Lakhani
Karachi
Printed in The News, May 25, 2015

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