Mohsin Siddiqui (Chief Reporter)

The Federal Tax Ombudsman (FTO) has issued a directive to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to take swift action against hackers orchestrating a significant fraud scheme involving the falsification of sales tax returns. This fraudulent activity aims to fabricate sales and purchases, potentially leading to benefits amounting to billions.

A complaint has been lodged against the Member IR (Operations) FBR and Director Intelligence and Investigation (IR), Karachi, under the Federal Tax Ombudsman Ordinance, 2000. The complaint alleges negligence in resolving the issue of fraudulent entries in the sales tax return of a registered person (RP) for September 2023.

The complainant, engaged in the paper and paperboard business in RTO-1, Karachi, discovered unauthorized changes to their login credentials. Despite immediate action to recover the password, the complainant found fake purchases and sales uploaded in their sales tax return for September 2023 upon logging into their IRIS account.

The complainant urgently requested the deletion of these fraudulent entries, citing the disruption to their business operations and the inability to submit subsequent sales tax returns. Allegedly, the department failed to address this request, leading to the filing of the complaint.

During the hearing, it was revealed that field officers cannot delete these annexures, emphasizing the need for a thorough investigation. The PRAL official suggested involving the Member (IT), FBR, to identify the machine (computer) ID used for the alleged fraudulent annexures. Additionally, the DG I&I (IR) was urged to conduct a comprehensive investigation to unveil the entire network behind this suspected fraud.