ISLAMABAD – Pakistani nationals having illegal assets abroad lands intotrouble as Pakistan will start getting financial details of its citizensfrom 60 countries under global treaties on Automatic Exchange ofInformation (AEOI) by September 1, 2018.
Official sources said that the AEOI is an initiative of Organization ofEconomic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members and Pakistan hascommitted to start exchange of information of financial accounts onautomatic basis from September 1, 2018.
They said that the OECD list has extended to over 122 countries forexchange of financial details on automatic basis but Pakistan wouldinitially start receiving information from 60 countries, including UAE,United Kingdom and Switzerland from September 1, 2018.
Sources said they had completed all primary and secondary legislation andestablished the required infrastructure in form of AEOI centre and itszones and also issued necessary guidelines in this regard. Replying to aquestion, they said, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) was exerting its bestefforts to facilitate the financial institutions for their reporting offinancial accounts and the AEOI software was now in place and the boardwould able to go live for transmission to OECD by September 1, 2018.
Answering a question, they said, M/s Vizor, an Irish company had developedand provided the AEOI software to FBR; and PRAL team had now completed theconfiguration and installation process of the software and related hardwareat AEOI centre and its zones.
According to the revised guidelines, an isolated centre, dedicated forreceipt of information and data processing was established in the FBRheadquarters, which was secured both physically and virtually. All the AEOIdata will be accessed, processed and transferred only from the AEOI centreby dedicated human resource and all activities and transactions in thecentre will be monitored and recorded and the monitoring of AEOI zones willalso be carried out virtually through the centre.
The information received from various jurisdictions on automatic basisunder a bilateral or multilateral agreement will be cross-matched with theexisting database in the AEOI centre. In case the reported person is anexisting taxpayer, the information will be passed on to the concerned AEOIzone as per the aforementioned jurisdiction. However, if the reportedperson is not registered with FBR, the secretary (exchange of information)will assign jurisdiction of the case to the relevant AEOI zone based on thecurrent address.
All transfer of encrypted information from AEOI centre to the commissionerswill take place through Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel and will onlybe accessible on a dedicated computer in AEOI room of the concerned LTU/RTOand access to the AEOI room is restricted to authorized personnel throughbiometric verification. In addition, no storage device including USB,hard-drive, mobile phones, cameras etc., will be allowed in the AEOI rooms.
The commissioner on the basis of AEOI will seek information under section176 of Income Tax Ordinance 2001 from any other person or authority asdeemed appropriate while taking into account confidentiality and in case ofunsatisfactory reply to the notice or no reply, the commissioner (AEOI)shall issue notices under section 114(4) and 116(1) in cases where incometax return and wealth statement has not been filed; otherwise, proceedingswill be done in accordance with the relevant provisions of the ordinance.
The information and documents sought in the notice may inter alia includeCNIC/NICOP/POC/NTN, details about the financial account, sources ofinvestment, etc. Six AEOI zones have been established at Karachi, Peshawar,Islamabad, Lahore, Multan and Quetta.