LAHORE - A delegation of the Federal Revenue Alliance Employees Union, led by its Lahore region president Naeem Abbas Shah, called on PML-N leader Hamza Shahbaz and presented him workers’ charter of demands.
The delegation included Wasim Sarwar Dar, Shehzad Butt, Malik Akram Khokhar, Ch Iftikhar, Malik Azhar and Ch Altaf Mehdi. The meeting, which continued well over three hours, discussed the issues faced by the FBR Union.
The PML-N leader asked the union to submit the whole details of revenue leakage and names of officials who are responsible for this revenue loss to nation exchequer. Hamza Shahbaz also assured the Union to take up all genuine issues with the FBR chairman and resolve them at the earliest. He announced to visit the RTO and continue to work with the Union against revenue leakage particularly in the Lahore RTO.
The Lahore region president also briefed Hamza about the measures to enhance revenue generation, besides broadening of tax base.  Naeem Abbas proposed several steps for widening of tax base by including new taxpayers instead of raising burden on the already taxpaying individuals. The longstanding issue of the revenue leakage of about Rs125 billion by the so-called non-resident companies also came under discussion in the meeting. The union leader pointed out the names of high officials who are responsible for this corruption, protecting the tax evading companies.
Workers’ promotions were stopped a long time ago as the regional heads have no power in this regard. The union demanded that these powers should be delegated to chief commissioners of Inland Revenue. He stated that several high officials of the FBR have acknowledged the genuineness of the workers’ demand but are not ready to meet them.