ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Member Inland Revenue (Operations) Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar publicly admitted that the FBR has to file appeals against all cases won by taxpayers before tribunals, high courts and Supreme Court of Pakistan due to fear of National Accountability Bureau (NAB) and Auditor General of Pakistan. During the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee held at the Parliament House on Friday, there are cases where we are sure to lose at the level of courts, but we have no option but to file appeals against all cases decided in favour of the taxpayers to avoid audit objections. It is a general practice of the tax department to file appeal against all orders of the taxpayers despite the fact that the department may lost case in court. Taxpayers time and money is also wasted during futile litigation between the FBR and the taxpayers. “We have to challenge all cases against taxpayers before all forums available including higher courts,” he said. “We know that the NAB and the Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) keeps an eye on the FBR. Therefore, we file appeal against all cases against the taxpayers”, the FBR Member said. When Public Accounts Committee (PAC) objected that why FBR failed to settle audit objections of billions since 2010-11 to 2013-14, the FBR Member stated that most of these cases are under litigation in courts. Some cases are pending in courts for the last 13-14 years. He referred to many cases where AGP has raised audit objections of billions, but the cases have been decided by courts and audit objections stands deleted. In some cases, the FBR Member said that we already know that the cases of the tax department have weak legal grounds, but we have to challenge all cases in higher courts. He said that every person file appeal before Commissioner Appeals against the orders of the FBR where tax demand…