Four new amnesty schemes this month: cases of tax frauds, fake refunds not covered

The four new amnesty schemes to be announced during this month for waiver of default surcharge/penalty of sales tax, income tax, customs duty and federal excise duty would not be applicable to cases of fraudulent refunds, drawbacks and tax frauds.
It is learnt here on Wednesday that the Federal Board of Revenue will simultaneously announce four amnesty schemes for waiving whole amount of default surcharge, penal surcharge for overstayed warehoused goods, penalty on account of non-payment of outstanding amount of duties and taxes.
The Board would allow registered taxpayers to pay principal amount of income tax, sales tax, Federal Excise Duty, and customs duty to avail waiver of penalty and default surcharge etc under four new amnesty schemes. In this regard, the FBR will issue four notifications following approval of schemes by Ministry of Finance to meet thrice revised revenue target of Rs 2,050 billion by end June 2013.
The benefit of the amnesty schemes would be available to cases where principal amount of sales tax, income tax, customs duty and federal excise duty has been paid by June 30 2013. In order to encourage the taxpayers to make payments of the outstanding dues, FBR will notify that similar schemes may be allowed for 2012-13 waiving the whole amount of default surcharge, penal surcharge (in case of overstayed warehoused goods) and penalty on account of non-payment of any outstanding amount of duty and taxes subject to the condition that the whole outstanding principal amount of Sales Tax, Federal Excise Duty, Customs Duty and Income Tax, as the case may be, is paid by the 30th June, 2013. However, this benefit shall not be available to cases of fraudulent refunds, drawback cases or any other duty/tax fraud.