Tax authority set to chase 13,000 luxury cars

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected information of 13,000 luxury vehicles, whose owners have never filed income tax returns, a senior tax official said on Thursday.

“The data had been collected from motor vehicle registration authority,” Badaruddin Ahmed Qureshi, Chief Commissioner Inland Revenue, Regional Tax Office (RTO)-II Karachi, said addressing a press conference regarding asset declaration scheme.

Qureshi said under Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 all those who owned motor vehicles above 1,000CC were required to file income tax returns irrespective of the threshold income, adding, the latest information only included those persons who owned above 2000CC motor vehicles.

The chief commissioner said the RTO-II was ready to take action against those non-compliant individuals, but it would not make any move before the stipulated last date of the ongoing amnesty scheme.

“The asset declaration scheme is expiring on June 30 and after that the FBR (Federal Board of Revenue) will invoke all provisions of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 pertaining to penalty and prosecution for non-compliance,” the chief commissioner said.

Qureshi said the asset declaration scheme was introduced after realising that those people should be given a last chance to legalise their undeclared assets and cash.

“The FBR will take all possible measures to bring those people whose information is available on the database,” he added.

After explaining all the aspects of the amnesty scheme in detail, he said this scheme was different from previous ones as the undeclared expenditures were also included in it.

Qureshi said the tax authorities were approaching all segments of economy, urging people to avail this scheme;

otherwise it would be difficult for them to hide their undeclared assets and black money.

To a question, he said the information of declaration had been kept very secret and the field offices had no access to the data of persons, who had availed the amnesty scheme.

Qureshi said at present the pace for availing the scheme was very low; however, the momentum would increase by the passage of time.

Replying to another query, the tax official said the date for availing the scheme would not be extended owing to international obligations under International Monetary Fund’s program.

Concluding his press briefing, he advised the people to file their declarations by June 30 as it would enable them to pay their taxes afterwards till June 30, 2020 with default surcharge.