Amnesty scheme

Rs936m to be recovered from 1,272 declarations so far

By Our correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Despite Prime Minister Imran Khan’s request to avail asset declaration scheme through special message, the tax amnesty scheme has so far received a cold response as the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) received 1,272 declarations with paid up tax amount of Rs936 million in the pipeline.

“We have received 1,272 declarations out of which around 66 percent availed amnesty on domestic assets/income, while one-third availed amnesty for owning assets/income abroad,” top official sources told The News here Friday.

An official said the submission of declaration of asset forms showed that the FBR would receive tax amount of Rs936 million. He said that the last amnesty scheme had secured Rs90 billion tax during the last 10 days of the amnesty scheme so this time the amnesty would get good response in second half of the June 2019.

Under Asset Declaration Scheme, the asset held outside Pakistan and foreign currency held in the country needs to be converted into rupee under the exchange rates as “may be notified on daily basis by the SBP to the FBR through dedicated email in respect of ten currencies i.e. AED (UAE dirham), AUD (Australian dollar), CAD (Canadian dollar), CHF (Swiss franc), CNY (yuan), EUR (euro), GBP (pound), JPY (yen), SAR (riyal), and USD (dollar)”.

The system will generate tax liability of the taxpayer in PKR by applying the relevant tax rate for each category of disclosed assets.

The taxpayer has the option of discharging his/her liability either in USD or AED. After selection of tax payment currency, the system will compute the tax liability in both PKR and USD/AED. The sequential number of PSID (PSID Number) will be recorded by the taxpayer in his/her own record, besides taking the print thereof.

The assets that need to be included in the foreign currency held in Pakistan include cash held by the declarant, which is deposited into a bank account, foreign currency held in declarants’ own foreign currency bank account and retained in the said account, and face value of the amount invested in Pakistan Banao Certificates (PBC).