Pakistan approaches UAE, Swiss Authorities over illegal assets of Pakistanis in foreign banks
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ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Finance Rana Muhammad Afzal while briefing reporter after meeting of Standing Committee on Law and Justice on Thursday disclosed talks were ongoing with UAE and Swiss governments to retrieve information about Pakistani’s having billion dollars of assets abroad.
Afzal said this information about bank accounts is being retrieved to ensure these Pakistani’s are brought into the tax net, reported an English daily.
He said negotiations were underway in Switzerland and Dubai for retrieval of information regarding properties and other assets of Pakistani’s.
The Minister of State for Finance pointed out Pakistan, Switzerland and UAE were members of Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and as per its rules, all member countries were required to share data about properties and assets of citizens of each other’s countries.
He added that process of information exchange among OECD member countries had been initiated from the 1st of January 2018.
Due to the OECD charter, Mr. Afzal stated the authorities would be able to retrieve information regarding those 500 Pakistani citizens named in Panama Papers scandal in 2016 and properties and bank accounts they house.
Minister of State for Finance said those citizens who had kept their money abroad would be given an opportunity to legalize their wealth by paying an appropriate tax as per an amnesty scheme being worked upon by the government.
He added the amnesty scheme being worked upon was being finalized and fine-tuned to ensure it is more advantageous for the people and the government.
