Lahore High Court Sets Aside FBR Notices for Bank Account Details

The Lahore High Court has set aside notices seeking taxpayers' bank account details. It ruled that the FBR cannot use information requests to bypass the legal time limits for tax assessments.

In this article we set out what the court stopped, and the powers it left in place. Here is everything you need to know.

What the Lahore High Court did not take away

The protection is against proceedings pursued beyond the period allowed by law. The route the court closed is the use of an information request to get past that limit and seek bank account details. The judgment says other lawful powers of the FBR remain unaffected.

This account does not name the judge, the petition, or a blanket ban on every bank enquiry. It sets aside the notices that were used in this way.

Why it matters

A time limit is useless if a fresh information request can restart the clock. The court treated that use of a request as a bypass. It did not, on this account, strip the FBR of powers that stay inside the law.

• The court is the Lahore High Court
• The notices sought taxpayers' bank account details
• Those notices were set aside
• Information requests cannot bypass assessment time limits
• Taxpayers are protected from proceedings outside the legal period
• Other lawful FBR powers remain

What the ruling does not say

1. That the FBR can never ask a bank for information.
2. The name of the case or the judge.
3. How many taxpayers were covered by the notices.
4. A change to the length of the assessment period itself.

What happens next

An FBR statement on which requests it will still issue, inside the time limit, would show how the department reads the ruling. We will update this article if one is published.

Our verdict

The Lahore High Court set aside notices for taxpayers' bank account details and held that the FBR cannot use information requests to bypass assessment time limits. Proceedings outside the legal period are barred. Other lawful powers of the FBR remain unaffected.

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