ISLAMABAD – The government Tuesday announced Asset Declaration Scheme,providing one more opportunity to all Pakistani citizens to declare andlegalize undisclosed assets inside and outside the country by paying justfour percent taxes on all assets other than real estate.
The scheme would be applicable till June 30, and all Pakistan citizens,other than those holding public offices or their dependents, would be ableto take benefit from it, Advisor to Prime Minister Finance, Dr Abdul HafeezShaikh said at a press conference while announcing the scheme after itsformal approval by the federal cabinet.
The advisor was accompanied by Special Assistant to the Prime Minister onInformation and Broadcasting, Dr Firdous Ashiq Awan, State Minister forRevenues, Hammad Azhar and Federal Board of Revenue Chairman Syed ShabbarZaidi.
The advisor said basic purpose of the scheme was not to generate revenuebut to document economy and make the dead assets functional to promoteeconomy.
He said the philosophy behind the scheme was to encourage businessmen toparticipate in the legal economy, adding it did not intend to intimidatepeople.He said efforts have been made to make the scheme easy in understanding aswell as implementing.
He said all assets were included in the scheme inside or outside Pakistan.All assets other than real estate, would have to pay four percent to getthese legalized.
In case of real estate, it would be evaluated at 1.5 on FBR value, to bringit to market value he said, citing an example that if the FBR value of anyproperty was Rs1 million, it would be charged at the value of Rs1.5 million.
He said the Pakistanis abroad could also pay four percent to legalize theirundisclosed assets, however added that in terms of cash, they would have todeposit their money in Pakistani banks (in local or foreign currency),otherwise they would have to pay 6 percent to legalize their assets.
Abdul Hafeez Shaikh said every Pakistani national was eligible to takebenefit from this scheme however, the scheme would not be applicable to thepublic office holders and their dependents.
Inviting all such people who had their undeclared assets to take benefitfrom this scheme, the Advisor said this was the last chance as thegovernment had already imposed the Benami Law under which all such benamiproperties would be confiscated by the government.
Replying to a question, Hafeez Shaikh said talks between Pakistan andInternational Monetary Fund (IMF) continued for around 7-8 months andnothing special was added in the agreement after he joined the office.
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“The IMF is an international institution which primarily focuses onbringing the financially weak countries out of financial crisis and theconditions set by the Fund for Pakistan are in its own interest,” he saidadding whether it was the condition of shrinking trade deficit, or reducingexpenditures and increasing revenues, or selling out the bleeding State OwnEntities, all such conditions were aimed at stabilizing the country’seconomy.
Replying to a question whether this would be the last programme with IMF,the Advisor said in the past, the governments could not fulfill theconditions of IMF which resulted in instability of the economy, but thistime the government was committed to abide by all the conditions and hopedthat the country would not need to go for another programme.He said the electricity price would be increased for only those consumerswho use 300 and above units per month, while the rest of 75% consumerswould not be affected by the power tariff raises.
He informed that in the upcoming budget the government was raising thebudget for the downtrodden segment of the society and allocating Rs 180billion compared to Rs 100 billion in the previous year.
The Advisor said under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP)2019-20, the government would allocate Rs 550-600 billion while in the nextyear this budget would be increased to over Rs 700 billion which would helpgenerating more new jobs.
He said the revenue performance had not been so good in the past but nowthe government was taking some basic measures which would help taking therevenue level to record high in coming years.
Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar said there was a lot ofdifference between the current and previous amnesty schemes as for thefirst time there was a condition for all asset declarer to become tax filerbesides giving option to all such people to revise their balance sheet intheir tax returns.
Chairman FBR Syed Shabbar Zaidi said government of Pakistan had clearbusiness information about the Pakistanis living abroad and at present itpossess information about 150,000 accounts in 28 countries against whichthe government had started taking action.
He also urged the media to become partner in this scheme and play role inmaking this scheme a big success.
