Businessmen asked to regularise undeclared assets before 30th

FAISALABAD: The government is fast moving towards documentation of economy and in this connection before taking harsh measures, the business community is being offered the last opportunity to regularise their undeclared assets before June 30.

Addressing an awareness session on ‘Asset Declaration Scheme-2019’ at the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) here on Monday, Inland Revenue Lyallpur Commissioner Zone Khalid Malik told that the information collected through this scheme would be kept secret and no department could question the details of regularised undeclared assets.

RTO DC Muhammad Zeeshan gave a detailed presentation on the Amnesty Scheme and told that national and foreign assets could be regularise before June 30. He said that the government had signed a number of agreements with different countries for the exchange of information and now it was practically impossible for anybody to conceal its offshore properties. He informed that this scheme would be applicable on immoveable properties while gold, prize bonds and other moveable assets would not fall within this Amnesty Scheme.

He told that the government had fixed minimum rate for regularisation of undeclared assets from 1.5pc to 6pc and hence this scheme was beneficial for the business community as they could easily regularise their local as well as foreign assets by paying very nominal fee. Earlier, FCCI acting president Mian Tanveer Ahmed explained the basic objectives to introduce the Tax Amnesty scheme and told that it was an important step towards the documentation of economy.

This scheme would also help expanding tax net, which was dismally poor in Pakistan, he told. He added that the government should facilitate business community instead of creating problems for them.

He said that pending refund claims should be paid without any further delay and decision to levy 17pc sales tax should also be eliminated as it would have negative impact on our exports, which would suffer due to increase in cost of doing business.