KARACHI: The new valuation mechanism introduced by the federal government has totally halted property registration activities all over Pakistan, causing frustration among applicants and huge loses of revenue to the government, an industry official said on Tuesday.
Senior Vice Chairman of Association of Builders and Developers of Pakistan (ABAD) Arif Yousuf Jeewa said the property registration has come to a total halt throughout the country due to rigid attitude of registrars, who are asking applicants to produce stamp duty according to the property valuation notified by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) instead of the district commission (DC) rates.
"All registrars, throughout the country, are rejecting those property cases presented on the basis of DC valuation, saying that they will only accept those applications of registration, which have stamp duty according to immoveable property valuation fixed by the FBR," Jeewa said. "But the fact is that the DC rates are for stamp duty and it is domain of provincial governments, while property valuation mechanism of the FBR is for collecting withholding tax (WHT) and capital gain tax (CGT) only and it has nothing to do with stamp duty."
Jeewa said the government and the FBR should issue clear instructions to all registrars that the immoveable property valuation fixed by the revenue authorities is just for the sake of collecting WHT and CGT only and it has nothing to do with the stamp duty.
"The government is forming law as and when it wants to but never thinks about the after-effects of such laws and the same thing is happening with new property valuation system," he added.
He suggested that the government should run an awareness campaign for people before implementing the new system and also inform the relevant officials regarding implementation of the new system and delay implementation for the time-being so that the chaos created by misunderstanding could be cleared.
Jeewa said the FBR has notified valuation of immoveable properties more than fair market value in many cities of the country. "The FBR should remove anomalies in this regard and bring the valuation at par with fair market value for which the government has formed the new law."
