Public office & public accountability—II Tax secrecy & parliamentary power

Section 216 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 contains disclosure exceptions. A clear statutory duty would make parliamentary access dependable and protect records against misuse

 A parliamentary committee cannot supervise revenue administration while the executive decides which facts it may see. Equally, a taxpayer should not discover that a confidential return has become a political handout. Pakistan needs a law that gives Parliament dependable access for a defined public purpose and makes misuse of that access answerable.

The dispute is familiar. In our July 2026 examination of parliamentary access, we challenged the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) reliance on confidentiality when a Senate committee sought tax information. The constitutional argument remains compelling: an executive agency administering Parliament’s law must be accountable for its administration. The next step is to translate that position into an express statutory arrangement for public-office declarations.

Our updated commentary on the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 shows why precision matters. Section 216(1) protects specified tax information. Subsection (2), in its present form, also restricts compulsory production before courts and other authorities, subject to the Ordinance’s own exceptions. The latter cannot be wished away by quoting the general desirability of transparency.

The section contains important openings. Subsection (3)(d) permits disclosure to the Auditor-General for constitutional functions. Clause (p) addresses information required for investigations into a public servant’s conduct and affairs. Clause (t) concerns specified senior public officials and public servants, related persons and beneficial ownership, but carries an express exclusion. Its scope must be read with that qualification. These provisions defeat the claim that tax confidentiality is absolute.

Subsections (5) and (6) are also relevant. The former permits publication by the Board with prior federal-government approval; the latter permits government publication concerning holders of public office within the referenced definition. Permission to publish, however, does not itself create an annual duty to deliver every relevant declaration to a joint parliamentary verification body. The proposed legislation must supply that duty.

Article 19A of the Constitution supports access to information of public importance. Articles 66 and 67 address parliamentary privilege and procedure; Article 77 governs federal taxation by law. Together they strengthen the case for effective legislative scrutiny. It would still be unsafe to describe every possible committee demand for an identifiable person’s complete tax file as an already settled, unlimited constitutional entitlement.

Parliament can remove that uncertainty. It should amend section 216 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 expressly to authorise and require secure transmission of the defined records of covered public officeholders to a designated parliamentary disclosure institution.

The amendment should operate alongside a substantive disclosure law, with consistent definitions, time limits and protections. Routine compliance should not require a fresh cabinet decision whenever a committee asks a politically inconvenient question.

The duty should attach to the institution holding the records. It should cover original filings, subsequent revisions and the dates on which changes were made. An unexplained substitution of a return can be as revealing as an omission in the original. A system that supplies only the latest version may hide the history needed to understand whether a correction was voluntary or followed discovery.

The information supplied must also match the legal purpose. An inquiry into a covered official’s wealth does not justify unrestricted circulation of unrelated taxpayers’ affairs. Where a company, trust or other person is relevant because of a properly identified financial connection, access should be authorised on recorded grounds. The law should distinguish routine transmission of covered declarations from a reasoned request for additional evidence.

Privacy requires institutions capable of keeping promises. The verification office should restrict access to authorised staff, record every inspection and download, and prohibit unauthorised onward disclosure.

Relevant records may need to be examined in closed proceedings. Members should receive the material necessary for oversight rather than casual copies of entire databases. Those entrusted with tax information should face enforceable duties comparable to those imposed on revenue officials.

The public disclosure register should serve a different function. It should show prescribed financial interests, categories of assets and liabilities, valuation bases, material changes and relevant compliance outcomes. It need not expose private identifiers or operational security information. A publicly useful account of financial interests and a confidential evidentiary file can coexist within one lawful system.

There must be an independent way to challenge an excessive demand, an unjustified refusal or an improper redaction. Reasons should be recorded, review should be prompt and the disputed material should be preserved. Otherwise, executive obstruction and parliamentary overreach become competing forms of unaccountable discretion. Neither deserves constitutional protection merely because it has acquired an official letterhead.

The civil-service disclosure law enacted in 2025 demonstrates that Parliament can impose a positive disclosure duty while recognising security and privacy. Its implementation offers lessons for a wider framework. It does not automatically resolve the separate question of parliamentary access to tax records, or extend the same coverage to every public institution.

Past tax amnesties require particular legal care. Section 216(2) expressly refers to declarations under the 2018 and 2019 schemes. Earlier promises of confidentiality, exclusions from those schemes and any alleged misuse must be examined under the applicable law.

A new committee should not assume that its creation retrospectively extinguishes protections or revives time-barred proceedings. Prospective reform and lawful scrutiny of historic conduct are distinct tasks.

Nor should existing disclosure powers remain unused while Parliament debates a comprehensive bill. Authorities should act within the present exceptions, publish information already authorised by law and provide institutional statistics that do not identify private taxpayers. Aggregate evidence about audits, outstanding demands, delays and enforcement outcomes can answer many oversight questions without disclosing a single bank account number.

Our earlier work on tax directories sought to make public-office taxation visible. The wider ambition now should be a reliable connection between disclosure, verification and institutional responsibility. A directory cannot establish whether wealth was lawfully acquired; it can only supply part of the evidence.

The right to seek records should also carry a duty to state why they are needed. A request should identify the statutory function being performed, the covered person or class, the reporting periods and the categories required. This would help distinguish a legitimate verification exercise from a demand made for publicity.

Where a lawful objection arises, the disputed scope should go promptly to the designated review mechanism. Neither a vague invocation of privilege nor a standard letter citing confidentiality should be sufficient to close the issue. Written reasons would make the conduct of both institutions capable of examination.

The law should make the responsibility unmistakable. FBR must provide what the disclosure statute requires, the verification institution must protect and examine it, and the competent authorities must explain what they did with substantiated referrals. Parliamentary accountability will become credible when each of these duties can be enforced without depending on the goodwill of the person being scrutinised.

[To be continued]

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Huzaima Bukhari, lawyer and author, has been Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Senior Visiting Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE). She also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 2003.

Dr. Ikramul Haq, Advocate Supreme Court, Adjunct Faculty at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), member Advisory Board and Visiting Senior Fellow of Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), holds an LLD in tax laws. He was full-time journalist from 1979 to 1984 with Viewpoint and Dawn. He also served Civil Services of Pakistan from 1984 to 1996.