Senate body rejects incentives for non-filers

ISLAMABAD: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance rejected the government’s proposal to withdraw ban on non-filers to purchase motor vehicles and properties as the government failed to provide alternatives, insiders said on Thursday.

It was the last day of deliberations on mini-budget for finalising recommendations on the mini-budget.

The senate body held in-camera meeting under the chairmanship of Senator Farooq Naek at the Parliament House to finalise recommendations, which are expected to be tabled before the senate on coming Monday.

After getting endorsement from the senate, the recommendations will be forwarded to National Assembly next week to get approval for passing the mini-budget for 2018/19.

Highly-placed sources said the government’s economic team backtracked and did not turn up before the senate standing committee on finance to seek endorsement of senate panel despite making commitment before senators to present alternate option if ban on non-filers to purchase motor vehicle and immoveable property is withdrawn. Sources said the government weighed an option to increase tax on non-filers who were proposed to be given incentives of buying property or car.

Senator Haroon Akhtar belonging to Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) confirmed with the scribe that the government backed out from its commitment to come up with viable option for moving against non- filers but they took another u-turn and “did not bother to come back before the senate panel in today’s meeting”.

Minister for Finance Asad Umar and Minister of State for Revenues Hammad Azhar even created an embarrassing situation for treasury member of PTI Senator Mohsin Aziz who demanded of the government to extend tax incentives for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan industries for next five years.

Earlier, senators asked the government to work out exact revenue impact for granting this exemption and the government’s team committed to come back with exact details on Thursday. Senator Aziz made all-out efforts to contact the minister of state on revenue, but to no avail and so the committee refused to recommend granting of exemption for industries in KP and Balochistan for another few years.

The senate panel was told that it was violation of the Supreme Court’s order in one renowned case in which the court declared that no tax could be imposed without approval of the parliament. However, the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf-led government did not bring details of the items for enhancing regulatory duty in the mini-budget. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) team told the senators that the cabinet did not release approved minutes and the FBR would notify items on which the RD was imposed or jacked up through the revised budget for the current fiscal year.

Naek told journalists after the meeting that the panel accomplished its exercise to review Finance Supplementary (Amendment) Bill 2018 and its recommendations would be tabled before the house. Akhtar said the committee also rejected the government’s move to implement income tax on salaried class and non-salaried class with retrospective effect and recommended them to implement it.