Tax Amnesty Scheme doesn't mean to threaten, blackmail people: Hafeez Sheikh

The adviser said that the public servants and their families cannot take advantage of the scheme.

ISLAMABAD (Dunya News) – Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Abdul Hafeez Sheikh on Tuesday said that the Tax Amnesty Scheme doesn’t mean to threaten and blackmail people but aims at encouraging business in the country.

Addressing a press conference in Islamabad, he said that all Pakistanis can take part in the scheme, adding that all assets whether in Pakistan or abroad can be declared under the scheme.

The adviser said that the public servants and their families cannot take advantage of the scheme. Inviting all such people who had their undeclared assets to take benefit from this scheme, the Advisor said this was the last chance as the government had already imposed the Benami Law under which all such benami properties would be confiscated by the government.

“Four percent tax will have to be paid in all sectors excluding real estate,” he said and added those who have assets abroad would have to pay 6 percent tax instead of 4 percent. He said the Pakistanis abroad could also pay four percent to legalize their undisclosed assets, however added that in terms of cash, they would have to deposit their money in Pakistani banks (in local or foreign currency), otherwise they would have to pay 6 percent to legalize their assets.

In case of real estate, it would be evaluated at 1.5 on FBR value, to bring it to market value he said, citing an example that if the FBR value of any property was Rs1 million, it would be charged at the value of Rs1.5 million.

Hafeez Shaikh said the scheme will help encourage people to disclose their hidden assets legally by 30th of next month, adding that the effort has been made to implement the scheme seamlessly and it has been kept realistic.

To a question, he said Rs16 billion will be earmarked in next budget to subsidize the consumers using electricity upto 300 units a month. He said the budget of BISP will be increased to Rs180 billion to help poor segments of society.

The adviser went on to say that those who are criticizing the decision of going to IMF have themselves gone to the fund in past.

“In order to increase the performance of FBR, several crucial decisions are being made with new FBR chairman and renewed resolve of the government,” he added.

The advisor said basic purpose of the scheme was not to generate revenue but to document economy and make the dead assets functional to promote economy.

He said the philosophy behind the scheme was to encourage businessmen to participate in the legal economy, adding it did not intend to intimidate people. He said efforts have been made to make the scheme easy in understanding as well as implementing.

Replying to a question, Hafeez Shaikh said talks between Pakistan and International Monetary Fund (IMF) continued for around 7-8 months and nothing special was added in the agreement after he joined the office.

“The IMF is an international institution which primarily focuses on bringing the financially weak countries out of financial crisis and the conditions set by the Fund for Pakistan are in its own interest,” he said adding whether it was the condition of shrinking trade deficit, or reducing expenditures and increasing revenues, or selling out the bleeding State Own Entities, all such conditions were aimed at stabilizing the country’s economy.

Replying to a question whether this would be the last programme with IMF, the Advisor said in the past, the governments could not fulfill the conditions of IMF which resulted in instability of the economy, but this time the government was committed to abide by all the conditions and hoped that the country would not need to go for another programme.

He said the electricity price would be increased for only those consumers who use 300 and above units per month, while the rest of 75% consumers would not be affected by the power tariff raises.

He informed that in the upcoming budget the government was raising the budget for the downtrodden segment of the society and allocating Rs 180 billion 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 next year this budget would be increased to over Rs 700 billion which would help generating more new jobs.

He said the revenue performance had not been so good in the past but now the government was taking some basic measures which would help taking the revenue level to record high in coming years.

Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar said there was a lot of difference between the current and previous amnesty schemes as for the first time there was a condition for all asset declarer to become tax filer besides giving option to all such people to revise their balance sheet in their tax returns.

Chairman FBR Syed Shabbar Zaidi said government of Pakistan had clear business information about the Pakistanis living abroad and at present it possess information about 150,000 accounts in 28 countries against which the government had started taking action. He also urged the media to become partner in this scheme and play role in making this scheme a big success.