Govt collects $60m tax on foreign assets declarations

ISLAMABAD: Despite several requests for convincing masses to avail themselves of the last amnesty scheme, the government has received very dismal response from overseas Pakistanis as it attracted only $60 million in shape of taxes for whitening of foreign assets/ income.

Top official sources confirmed to The News on Thursday that the amnesty scheme, which was introduced during the last PML-N-led regime in 2018, had fetched $436 million from foreign amnesty.

It clearly demonstrated that the latest amnesty witnessed major decline of $376 million. The amnesty scheme on front of foreign assets/ income had literally failed to woo a large number of Pakistanis.

The latest amnesty scheme obtained 125,000 declarations and so far deposited tax amount was standing at Rs57.6 billion. This scheme could be simply described as source of whitening of immoveable property as major chunk used this scheme to regularise/ whiten their income invested in real estate.

A government official, on condition of anonymity, told The News that the amnesty scheme was a success as more new people have joined the tax net, adding that the main purpose of the scheme was to document the economy of the country. He said that the economy was in a very precarious situation when the government took the reins of power and it was very difficult to introduce such a scheme and make it a success. He said that even the previous government would have failed to achieve what the present government has.

Earlier, the government had given a number of declarations up to 137,000 but now the FBR found that there were duplications in submission of declarations so the latest number of submitted declarations stood at 125,000.

“The FBR has not yet closed down its portal because the regulator in USA has not yet cleared some of the amount paid for the latest amnesty scheme,” top official sources confirmed to The News here on Thursday and added that the regulator in US and other western world usually generated alarms on basis of any suspicion. It is hoped that this amount would be cleared soon from all procedural requirements.

The last amnesty in the PML-N regime was availed by those who had declared cash for availing themselves of amnesty.

However, the latest amnesty is different from the last one introduced by the PML-N regime because the scope of availing of amnesty was expanded to around 10 to 12 major cities of Pakistan including Abbottabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi and other allied cities.

The number of declarations increased to 125,000 for whitening of a total of Rs2,400 billion assets/ income of black money. So far, the FBR has collected Rs57 billion while around Rs13 billion is in the pipeline.

The last amnesty introduced during the PML-N led regime had received total 82,889 declarations in last tax amnesty scheme for whitening of Rs2,500 billion out of which foreign assets having worth of Rs1,040 billion and domestic assets of Rs1,460 billion were made part of the formal economy of the country.

Out of total 82,889 declarations, the FBR received 5,929 foreign and 76,960 domestic declarations.

When contacted FBR’s Member Inland Revenue Policy and official spokesman Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar on Thursday said that if someone deposited amount for availing amnesty but did not generate password for submission of declarations, in such cases the FBR would not be able to do anything except the deposited amount could be adjusted against their due taxes for the current fiscal year.

He said that the FBR would facilitate all those who were standing in the queue but could not submit declarations because of technical hitches.