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Thursday March 28, 2024

FBR rules out further extension in amnesty scheme

By Mehtab Haider
July 18, 2018

ISLAMABAD: Ruling out possibility of granting any further extension in tax amnesty scheme, the FBR’s Chairperson Rukhsana Yasmeen said that the tax machinery was preparing a detailed plan for expanding tax base before the incoming government coming into power after upcoming general elections as just one decision of last government had excluded 0.5 million taxpayers from the tax net.

“We are making plans to be presented before the incoming government after general elections for expanding already narrowed tax base. Just one decision taken by the last government excluded 0.5 million taxpayers from the tax net,” the newly appointed Chairperson Rukhsana Yasmeen said while talking to The News on telephone on Tuesday evening.

The chairperson FBR was referring to the decision taken by the last PML-N government on the name of economic reforms under which the taxable ceiling limit was jacked up and tax rate was also reduced from 30 to 15 percent with effect from July 1, 2018.

The chairperson FBR said that it was not the mandate of the caretaker government to make major changes in tax policies so the FBR was contemplating upon devising comprehensive reform package which would be tabled before the incoming government after upcoming elections.

Dwelling upon ongoing amnesty scheme, Rukhsana Yasmeen said that nothing was under consideration for granting any further extension for availing tax amnesty scheme. “It’s a golden opportunity to declare all kinds of domestic and foreign assets as early as possible,” she added.

She said that it would be hard to make any guess about the envisaged tax target out of this ongoing amnesty scheme. At time of preparation of this amnesty scheme, she said that some assumptions were made on the basis of some estimates regarding assets of Pakistanis lying abroad or owning inside Pakistan. “

We are making all out efforts to lure potential under filers and non- filers to come into tax net,” she added. However, the FBR sources said that the tax machinery collected Rs97 billion so far through this amnesty scheme.

The government took decision to extend the deadline for availing this scheme up to July 31, 2018 after through deliberations but now the FBR was making crystal clear that there was no possibility of further extension.

 The caretaker led government claimed last week that the public response to the scheme was positive as so far 55,225 declarations were filed in which declared value of foreign assets is around Rs577 billion and that of domestic assets is around Rs1,192 billion.

Declarants have paid around Rs97 billion out of which around Rs36 billion have been collected on foreign assets and 61 billion on domestic assets. In addition, $40 million has been repatriated. This response to the amnesty schemes has been unprecedented.