Chairman Central Board of Revenue (CBR) Abdullah Yousuf has said that the CBR was studying a proposal aimed at launching an amnesty scheme for regularization of smuggled vehicles.
Talking to journalists at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) here on Wednesday Abdullah maintained that the issue of launching an amnesty scheme for regularisation of smuggled vehicles needs a thorough study.
'We have to assess what is the issue, what are the routes of smuggled vehicles and how to reach a permanent solution, to avoid same situation in future. He said that amnesty schemes were also introduced in the past too.
Regarding proposal of levying Capital Gains Tax on property deals, he said it was a provincial issue and the federal government could not impose this tax. However, he said that the Federal government could impose Capital Value Tax (CVT) on property deals. If government takes any decision in this regard, the CBR would do the needful, he added.
About Rs 690 billion revenue target for the current financial year, he said that it was a bit aggressive but achievable. He said that last month (July) CBR collected Rs 35 billion and in the month of August it hope to achieve the revenue of Rs 41 billion. About sales tax refund issues, he said that the CBR would release the refunds after thorough check.
Earlier addressing the members of LCCI Abdullah urged business community and their representative organisations to join hands with the CBR in bringing maximum number of people in the 'tax club'. 'Although revenue target is being surpassed for the last three years and first time in the country's history CBR had to revise the target upward last year but still Pakistan lags behind in improving tax to GDP ratio which is lowest in the region except Bangladesh,' he said. 'We have an average growth of 13 to 14 per cent in revenue targets as economy is growing. However, tax to GDP ratio was still low. Pakistan had a difference of 3 to 4 per cent from all the regions and only Bangladesh was a bit lower than Pakistan which has GDP ratio at 8.7 per cent', he said.
He said that if we had to sustain the growth rate we have to bring people from private sector in to tax net, as private sector is considered engine of growth. For this purpose, they are educating the masses, while Chambers have to join hands with the CBR for broadening the tax net.
He further said that the government had to invest a lot in different sectors such as ports, roads, transportation and other infrastructure to give boost to economic activity. About the issue of smuggling and under invoicing, he admitted it as problem and said that business community should come forward and tell that which items were smuggling prone. At what price they were being imported and how this problem could be tackled. He said that the CBR had also constituted various committees to thrash out the issue.
He informed the LCCI members that the CBR was trying to ensure that taxpayers could file their return electronically, which could be processed through computer and taxpayers have minimal contact with the tax collectors. He also hoped that during next month Karachi and Lahore stations would be linked up, so that Lahore businessmen could have information that what was being cleared at Karachi at what rate.
Abdullah Yousuf to another point categorically stated that levying of 0.1 per cent tax on cash withdrawals exceeding Rs 25000 would not be withdrawn. He said that it was a revenue measure, which would hopefully generate Rs 5 billion.
The Member Tax Facilitation Habib Fakharuddin gave a detailed briefing about reforms being carried out to facilitate trade and industry. He said that focus was on automation, and 70 to 80 per cent cost of reformation would go to this sector. He said that 2.28 million people had obtained National Tax Number but only 1.23 million-file return. Similarly, he said that more than 45000 companies were registered with the SECP and only 23,000 have NTN while those compliant of filing returns are only 12,525.
Comments
Comments are closed.