THIS is with reference to the letter ‘Taxp-ayer facilitation’ (Sept 12) which was in response to an earlier letter ‘FBR indifference is a cause of distress’ (Aug 17). The spokesperson for the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) tried to refute the facts stated in the letter regarding the disturbing situation related to the issuance of exemption certificates to various employees’ retirement funds by the Corporate Tax Office (CTO) in Karachi.

It was claimed in the ‘clarification’ that in July 2024, as many as 1,234 cases of such retirement funds were disposed of. Let us examine the claim. The working days in July, excluding Saturdays and Sundays, were 23 as the FBR is working five days a week since July 2024. This means that on average, almost 54 such cases were disposed of every day.

Taking the working hours as seven per day, excluding lunch and prayer break of 30 minutes and further 30 minutes for tea and other stuff, as per the Establishment Division’s notification dated April 16, 2024, which is also available on the FBR’s website, almost eight cases per hour were taken care of; one every 7.5 minutes.

This continued across a whole month, and in a month when the commissioner concerned left her charge (July 25) and a new commissioner took office, as per FBR’s notification (July 30). One wonders how all that has been claimed was even possible within the bureaucratic working of tax personnel at FBR field formations.

Another claim made in the ‘clarification’ was with regard to the number of cases handled till Aug 19 also suffers from similar ‘mathematical’ issues.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, technology maintains a log of every session and every transaction processed. With the help of the FBR’s own Iris portal, it is not at all difficult to verify the truthfulness, or otherwise, of the loud claims that have been made by the FBR spokesperson.

Name withheld on request
Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 4th, 2024