FBR confiscating ‘benami’ motor vehicles

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has started confiscating benami vehicles following an order passed by an appellate forum in favor of the tax authorities, sources said on Monday.

The sources said that the Karachi Benami Zone had filed references in 20 benami vehicles last year before the adjudicating authority. The benami adjudicating authority, the first appellate forum, recently passed an order in favour of the tax authorities giving them a go-ahead for confiscating the motor vehicles where beneficial owners were different from the purchasers of the motor vehicles.

The sources said following an order passed by the benami adjudicating authority the aggrieved persons had the opportunity to file an appeal before the appellate tribunal inland revenue. However, none of the purchaser or beneficial owners filed an appeal before the next judicial forum against the order within stipulated time period, they added. After lapse of the time for filing the appeal, the FBR authorities had initiated confiscation process.

The sources said Benami Zone Karachi had sought assistance from National Highway Motor Police, Anti-Car Lifting Cell and Police for the confiscation. The estimated value of the 20 motor vehicles, which also include luxury vehicles, is around Rs200 million.

The sources said after confiscation of the motor vehicles the Karachi Benami Zone would conduct a public auction for sale of the vehicles and deposit money into the national exchequer.

In order to discourage transactions having different beneficial owners than the actual purchasers, the government introduced the Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act, 2017 which becomes operative in March, 2019.

The Directorate of Benami Transactions through a statement in December 2020 said it had filed references amount of Rs7.4 billion against benami movable and immovable property transactions.

The references have been filed by anti-banami zones at Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi. According to the details, the zones had identified five benami share transactions worth Rs159.64 million and six cases identified as immovable properties worth Rs5.85 billion.

While one case of benami bank account amounting Rs1.04 billion was also detected. As per law, the Anti-Benami zones submit references in cases of suspected benami assets before the banami transactions adjudicating authority for confirmation / revocation of attachment of assets and then initiate confiscation proceedings.