Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Friday welcomed the tax amnesty scheme announced by Prime Minister with a vision to legalize undisclosed assets and incomes of Pakistanis held abroad or at home. However, the apex trade body has urged the government to get this amnesty scheme endorsed by the Parliament so that the beneficiaries can have more confidence in declaring their cash and assets.
Addressing a press conference at the Federation House, the FPCCI president Ghazanfar Bilour and SVP Mazhar said the scheme had been demanded by FPCCI for last several years. FPCCI urged the government to give legal and constitutional guarantees and a comprehensive protection package to all the beneficiaries of this scheme against the harassment or questioning by different agencies in future.
They appreciated the comprehensive scheme which would not only bring a change in the life of individuals, specially a salaried class, white collar workers, but would also hopefully, revamp economic structure of the country and would bring in much needed stability. They also requested the government to extend the scope of this amnesty scheme to every individual including politicians. They said Pakistan suffered from siphoning-off of the huge money from the country because of various factors and this resulted in a huge stock of Pakistani nationals' assets abroad, while the country suffered from the cash flow.
They said tax reduction would help in increasing the number of taxpayers and also relieve middle and salaried class. He said introduction of CNIC numbers as NTN number is a bold step and would help in documenting the economy. They said 2% tax on repatriation of money from abroad would help increase the foreign reserve which are depleting. This is the lowest rate as compared to all previous schemes of similar nature and therefore, would encourage a large number of people to bring back their cash from abroad.
They it would also encourage people to legalize these assets and the money invested in non-productive sectors would be invested into more productive sectors in the economy. The investment and foreign exchange bonds is also a positive step towards bringing the idle foreign exchange deposited in the banks to be utilized for the productive sectors of the economy. However, they said, recommendations of Assets Repatriated Ordinance lacks clarity as at present remittances less than $100,000 would continue without any questions from any agency about the source and enjoy tax exemptions. However the remittances greater than $100,000 would enjoy tax exemption but FBR can question the source, which is contradictory.
Comments
Comments are closed.