Additional tax and penalties

Meanwhile, Federal Board of Revenue announced amnesty and allowed exemption of the whole amount of default surcharge and penalty payable by a person who had illegally adjusted input tax

Taxpayer applied for the waiver of additional tax and penalty and requested to drop the recovery proceedings on the ground that principal amount of sales tax had already been paid

Revenue contended that taxpayer deposited the principal amount of tax prior to the issuance of both S.R.Os., the taxpayer was not entitled to claim exemption/waiver and effect of a notifications and S.R.O. was pros-pective and not retrospective

Validity

Taxpayer having paid sales tax before the announcement of amnesty scheme could not be punished by depriving him of the benefit available under the S.R.Os.

Denial of the benefit to the taxpayer would indeed be discriminatory

Notification which was beneficial to a person could operate retrospectively

Delay in disposal of application was tantamount to maladministration

Federal Tax Ombudsman recommended that Federal Board of Revenue to direct the Chief Commissioner to dispose of the taxpayer's application as per law.