Shabbar seeks Benami accounts information within a fortnight

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has finalised property valuation rates jacking up to 85 percent on average on the basis of different cities and forwarded to the Ministry of Law for vetting before issuance of an official notification.

“We are expecting to issue formal notification related to valuation of property rates for different important cities within this week,” top official sources in FBR confirmed to The News here on Monday.

The official said that the FBR jacked up the valuation rates from 50 percent to 85 percent on average as in some cases minor adjustments were made but in some cases the FBR proposed major jump in the valuation rates of real estate plots.

“We have also finalised refund rules,” said the official and added that the efforts were underway to finalise all rules and notifications, which were passed in the budget for 2019-20 but so far not fully operationalised. The FBR, he said, wants to operationalise all approved laws within this week.

The FBR has issued Sales Tax circular related to condition of Computerized National Identity Cards (CNICs) and stated that there was countrywide demand for decades to bring all people in the tax system and gradually convert CNIC as a National Tax Number (NTN). The amendment has been made to the Sales Tax Act 1990 (Section 23) and not in any other taxation status. This clearly means that provision is only applicable if purchase are made from a sales tax registered person. At present, there are only 41,484 sales tax registered persons who are actually paying some tax with their returns.

The condition will not apply if the value of purchases is below Rs50,000 in case sales is being made to an ordinary consumers. The term ordinary consumers is well defined.

Meanwhile, FBR Chairman Syed Muhammad Shabbar Zaidi requested all the heads of banks to provide information to FBR relating to Benami Accounts within fortnight. Official sources confirmed to The News that the FBR gave deadline of August 15, 2019 for sharing these details to banks and FBR expects that banks are bound to share such details under the requirements of Financial Action Task Force (FATF).

According to official statement issued by FBR on Monday stating that FBR chairman in his letter has recalled the earlier meeting held with Chief Financial Officers of all banks wherein it was agreed that all the banks will internally make an exercise seeking information from their account holders about the ‘Mandated’ or ‘Benami Accounts’ holders within their system. FBR chairman hoped that requisite steps would have been taken by the banks to gather such information.

Chairman has added that FBR is mandated to take action against Benami Accounts under the Benami Transaction (Prohibition) Ordinance, 2017. FBR chairman has requested the banks to share with FBR all the gathered information in this regard, which shall be kept highly confidential. FBR has legal obligation under the aforesaid law to identify such assets. In his letter, FBR chairman has stated that the best approach in this regard is mutual cooperation, voluntary compliance and close coordination between banks and FBR, the official statement concluded.