ISLAMABAD – The Benami law is likely to become operational later this week,allowing the government take strict actions against.Addressing a press briefing here, Member Inland Revenue Policy, FederalBoard of Revenue (FBR) Hamid Ateeq Server said that this was a very harshlaw under which the government would confiscate all properties and bankaccounts that would not be registered with the name of real owner.He informed that the Benami Act was passed in January, 2017 and now afterfinalizing of its rules and regulations, the law would become operationalby February 7 or 8.He said this law would act hard on those who register their properties,bank accounts, or vehicles on other beneficiaries’ name in order to evadetaxes.Briefing the media about revenue collection, Member IR operations, SeemaShakil said that during the period July-January 2018-19, the FBR collectedRs 2,060.757 billion against collection of Rs 1995.277 billion collectedduring same period of last year showing an increase of around 3 percent.She said that there was a shortfall in revenue collection mainly due torelief in tax measures while contraction of Federal Public SectorDevelopment Programme (PSDP) also negatively impacted the revenuecollection.She said the FBR was expecting a revenue shortfall of Rs 3.5 billion by theend of June 2019 against the target of Rs 4398 billion set by thegovernment for year 2018-19.She informed that during the period under review, total domestic revenuestood at Rs 1,057.651 billion against Rs 1,050.455 billion collected duringfirst seven months of the year 2017-18.Similarly total revenue collection on imports stood at Rs 1,003.105 billionduring July-January (2018-19) against Rs 944.822 billion collected duringsame period of the preceding year.Total income tax also increased to Rs 755.075 billion from Rs 754.902billion, while net Sales Tax increased to Rs 798.832 billion inJuly-January (2018-19) from Rs 805.163 billion in same period of last yearwhile that of Custom duty increased from Rs 330. 217 billion to Rs 389.456billion, she added.To a question Hamid Ateeq said tax relief announced by the governmentrecently would help increase in revenue in the long term.”The government had two options whether to raise taxes immediately or togive tax relief in a bid to strengthen economic growth in the country”, headded.He said if the government had opted raising taxes, although it would helpincreasing revenue for short time but due to this move, the government would have lost confidence among business community and common peopleultimately damaging the economy in long term.On the other hand, he said the relief measures might have some short termnegative impact on revenue collection, but it would help increasing levelof trust among the people and the business community on the government.To another query, he said the only solution to resolve the matter ofoverlapping of taxes among provinces and between provinces and federation,was establishment of a single tax authority.
Benami law to be operationalized in Pakistan with very harsh punishments
