Tax disputes to be resolved through mediation.

Byline: Irshad Ansari

ISLAMABAD -- The Federal Board of Revenue on Tuesday decided to grant the facility to resolve more than 31,000 tax cases at different legal forums through mediation committees.

For this purpose ADRC (Alternative dispute resolution committees) will be formed headed by retired session judges. The head of the committee will be paid Rs200,000 whereas the members will get Rs100,000 by the FBR through its budget. The petitioner and FBR will be bound to accept the decision of the mediatory committees.

However, those falling within the ambit of criminal proceedings and legal interpretation will not be handed over to these committees. The FBR has decided to make amendments to its income tax rule 2001 to provide this service to taxpayers through which rule 231 pertaining to the alternative dispute resolution will be amended for which the FBR has prepared the amendment rules draft and issued it to stakeholders for advice and recommendations.

According to the draft copy available with Express News the amended rules will be binding on all the cases that are to be resolved with meditation under the income tax ordinance 2001 section 134.

According to this section, those people will not be able to submit requests against people who are undergoing criminal proceedings. Documents relay that the concerned stakeholders will be able to submit objections within 7 days and after the specified time no objection or recommendation will be accepted. The amended rules will be enforced through a gazette notification.

The working of the alternative dispute resolution committees responsible for resolving the tax dispute cases is also being changed in the proposed rules and according to the new mechanism the head of such committee will be a retired district and session judge.

The committee members will be appointed through a consensus and nomination of the committee's third member will be made from the names included in the FBR's notified list.

FBR will notify about the formation of ADRC's three members and a retired...