Karachi: In a major development towards documenting the economy, banks haveagreed on sharing details of tax holders with the official of the FederalBoard of Revenue (FBR).
An agreement in this regard—between the tax authorities and the banks—wasinked in the ongoing week.
An official told a media, “The PBA (Pakistan Banks Association) has agreedto withdraw its petitions from the High Courts and also agreed to provideaccount holders information under section 165A (of the Income TaxOrdinance, 2001). It would enable the tax department to access real-timeinformation of transactions made through the banking system.”
Amidst this development, banks have agreed to withdraw their petitions bythe next week.
It is pertinent here to mention that under Section 165A, the banks areresponsible to provide details of financial transactions made by theiraccount holders to the FBR.
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Also, the same section was amended in 2014, 2018 and recently throughSupplementary Finance Amendment Act, 2019 on PBA’s recommendations.
“Therefore, the PBA and its members should not have any objection on theimplementation of section 165A of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001,” Chairman FBRShabbar Zaidi was quoted as saying.
As per law, the banks were bound to provide details of account holders.Those details included a list of persons making cash withdrawal ofRs50,000/day or over Rs1 million/month; deposits of Rs10 million/month;credit card payment of Rs250,000/month; and details of persons receivingprofit on debt above Rs500,000/year.
