ISLAMABAD – Stunning revelations have been made over the 2 tax amnestiesschemes offered by Pakistan government as both controversial schemes couldonly collect meager tax of Rs 5 billion only.
Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has shared the details of the two taxamnesty schemes with the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance.
The meeting was informed by the tax authorities that Rs. 1 billion in taxeswere recovered from money laundering of $5.5 billion because of the amnestyschemes offered in 2018 and 2019. The meeting was further told that taxauthorities could have imposed a 35% tax and a 35% penalty on the launderedamount of $5.5 billion.
Asad Umar was surprised that the government was unable to recover full taxon illegally parked money in foreign banks despite amnesty schemes offeredby the successive governments.
Asad criticized the idea of introducing amnesty schemes to enable citizensto whiten undisclosed assets, saying they show the “weakness of state”against tax evaders. Ayesha Ghous Bakhsh also questioned the use of theamnesty schemes despite a lackluster response.
The FBR’s Director-General International Taxes Mohammad Ashfaque informedthe NA panel that they received data of about 57,550 people under the OECDcooperation mechanism.
The tax authorities told the committee that OECD shared the data of 325undeclared accounts which had over $1 million each as on October 31, 2019.
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Of the 325 cases, Rs. 62.335 billion was whitened in 135 cases through thetax amnesty scheme in 2018 and Rs. 31.7 billion was whitened in 56 casesunder the 2019 amnesty scheme.
The total tax paid to the government was Rs. 2.819 billion in 2018 and Rs.1.694 billion in 2019. The Finance committee was informed that in total,115 cases were assessed with tax imposition of Rs. 4.063 billion and Rs.1.002 billion was recovered against the imposed tax.
10 cases are under proceedings, the committee was informed.
Overall, FBR collected just Rs. 5.5 billion with the two amnesty schemes.
The committee was further informed that Common Reporting Standard (CRS)data is expected from 19 more jurisdictions, apart from data from 45countries which has already been received. Pakistan has also transmitteddata to 55 jurisdictions and the OECD team is also helping Pakistan andother jurisdictions in handling different issues related to this data, headded. The committee expressed dissatisfaction with the performance of theFBR with regards to recovery under OECD.
