The National Board of Revenue on Thursday rescinded two orders it issued transferring 27 income tax commissioners following stern opposition from finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith to such major reshuffle without taking his opinion, NBR officials said.
They said that Muhith raised questions over such a major reshuffle in the income tax department by NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain just two months before his retirement.
Muhith also sought intervention of the public administration ministry to withhold the orders until the NBR gets a new chairman.
He also asked the NBR chairman about the rationale of such decision before his retirement.
Officials said that the finance minister might have suspected probable anomalies in the process of the massive reshuffle and for that reason he expressed such an objection.
Without smelling anomalies, Muhith is not supposed to react so angrily as the NBR chairman, as head of the tax department, has the full authority to make such decision even without taking opinion of the finance minister, they said.
On October 27, the revenue board issued the two office orders transferring 27 income tax commissioners, including three newly promoted commissioners.
Officials said that they had almost no experiences to see such a big reshuffle at a time within the tax department.
Later on Thursday (October 30) Muhith wrote a letter to the state minister for public administration Ismat Ara Sadek and sought the government intervention to withhold the transfer orders.
He said an outgoing official should not take such decision and the government should not allow the implementation of the decision.
The current contractual appointment of the NBR chairman, who is also secretary of Internal Resource Division of the finance ministry, is scheduled to end in early January, Muhith wrote stating that usually any official should not make such a major reshuffle in his last days of tenure.
‘Though the secretary is mainly responsible for taking such decision and the minister does not interfere in the process, the decision should be withheld until the revenue board gets a new chairman,’ he said.
Officials of the NBR said that Ghulam Hussaion had admitted his mistake and said that mistakenly he could not take advice from the minister. But he (the NBR chairman) had every right to take such decision and earlier the finance minister suggested for not placing such file before him, officials said.
They said such reshuffle was needed for achieving income tax collection target set for the current fiscal year as most of the commissioners spent around two to three years in their current work stations.
-With New Age input
