Draft of scheme to whiten black money being finalised

ISLAMABAD: The Nawaz Sharif government is likely to announce an across-the-board tax amnesty scheme shortly.

As per the draft being finalised by the federal government, all undeclared local and foreign assets of Pakistanis including movable/immovable properties, motor vehicles, machinery, cash in hand or in banks or in any financial institutions, or offshore companies, etc, will be covered by this scheme.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, during the export trophy function of Abdul Rauf Alam, the-then President of Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry, has assured the business community on the proposal of Mian Idrees, CEO of Sitara Chemicals, that he will talk to Minister for Finance, Revenue and Privatisation Senator Ishaq Dar for promulgating one-time tax amnesty scheme.

Under this proposed scheme, those who even once got issued a CNIC or Pakistani passport in his/her name will be named as Pakistani. All Pakistanis may be benefited from this scheme within six months only.

They will be liable to declare their black wealth in any kind.  Those who will first-time declare their hidden assets within the first two months will have to pay only five percent of their total black wealth once. Their black wealth will be declared legal wealth.

Those who will show their undeclared assets of Pakistan or abroad within three or four months of the scheme will be liable to deposit 7.5 % income tax to whiten their illegal wealth. 

Such Pakistanis who will decide themselves to declare their black assets in the last two months of this scheme will have to pay 10% of their declared assets value.

In India, the tax on the whitening of black money is around 50 percent. In Pakistan, the last slab of income tax is 35%. Those Pakistanis who will fail to get benefit of this scheme will be sent to jail for five years. They have also to pay 35% income tax on their concealment plus three hundred percent penalty.