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Citizen Report Card Study on Federal Tax Ombudsman Pakistan

The Government of Pakistan established the Office of the Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) in 2000 as a quasi-judicial forum to address the issues between various tax departments and taxpayers. The main objective of this study is to determine as to what extent FTO Office fulfills the obligations defined by the 2000 FTO Ordinance; what are weak points and gaps based on the perceptions, personal experience and knowledge of persons who lodge complaints with the FTO Office against tax officials. To achieve these objectives, Transparency International Pakistan prepared questionnaires which focus on structural and operational details related to stakeholders. For analytical purposes, Citizen Report Card (CRC) methodology was deployed, which itself is a proven technique for public opinion analysis in relation to public sector services and policies. The CRC survey focuses on the FTO performance for the year 2009 and 2010. An independent research firm, Islamic Countries Society of Statistical Sciences (ISOSS) was commissioned to carry out the study. It took a lot of effort as coordination with the FTO Office in Islamabad, FBR offices and trade bodies spread across the country, was by no means an easy task. The whole exercise was completed in a period of around two months and utmost care was taken during each and every step. A total number of 367 taxpayers were contacted. The project investigators made concentrated efforts by visiting each of the taxpayers several times; however, they were successful in getting responses from 248. The remaining taxpayers did not complete the questionnaire because they referred it to their lawyers/tax consultants, or they were busy or kept on delaying by giving various pretexts. The study indicates that the FTO resolves most of the cases in about two months, though, a few cases remain pending. Being a quasi-judicial forum, time becomes an important factor in the functioning of Federal Tax Ombudsman. According to the respondents, the FTO resolved most taxpayers’ complaints within 67 days in 2010, an improvement from 74 days in 2009; only 5.0% complaints are pending and proceedings in 11.3% complaints are underway and may lie with active consideration of the FTO officials.The time taken begins from the date of filing the complaint with FTO. It includes the time for communication of complaint by FTO Office to FBR, FBR’s response to FTO Office, reply of FBR sent to the complainant by FTO Office for filing rejoinder, if any, sharing the rejoinder with the FBR, holding hearing(s) of the case, and issuing of decision by the FTO.