It gives me great pleasure to launch the Federal Tax Ombudsman's (FTO's) website. This initiative is a critical component of our strategy to strengthen complaint filing and decision support system for the aggrieved taxpayers. The Website provides working knowledge of the legal and procedural framework, organisational and administrative set-up of FTO Secretariat and addresses of FTO Secretariat, Islamabad and the Regional Offices. It also contains FTO's landmark decisions on complaints which indicate the extent of relief being provided by FTO Secretariat to the aggrieved taxpayers.

The recent initiatives being packaged by  FTO  Secretariat are focused on providing inexpensive and speedy justice to the taxpayer aggrieved by tax maladministration. For this purpose two more regional offices are being operationlised in the country at Quetta and Peshawar. A state of the art online complaint filing system is also being put in place to reduce time and cost of complaint filing. The objective of introduction of information technology is to achieve a highly enabled paperless environment. In addition, an FTO – taxpayer interface has been established through periodic meetings with Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Trade Bodies, Business Associations, Tax Bars and the Civil Society Organisations in the country.

Similarly we have undertaken business process reengineering of our operating procedures to improve our output and productivity. The capacity building and professionalisation of the FTO Secretariat is an ongoing process to achieve higher levels of professionalism and to ensure good governance in the revenue administration.

While, the core objective is to provide an efficient and effective external equalizer in the form of FTO Secretariat to the less privileged, unempowered and underserved taxpayers against tax maladministration, our priority goals are to induce taxpayer friendliness of tax administration, remove tax related irritants, reduce cost of doing business and promote a conducive tax culture in Pakistan.

I believe the Website is user friendly. Suggestions to improve it will be welcome.

DR. MUHAMMAD SHOAIB SUDDLE
Federal Tax Ombudsman