Terming former Finance Minister Ishaq Dar an 'economic hit man,' Minister of State for Revenue Hammad Azhar said that the government would not introduce fresh tax amnesty for declaration of foreign and domestic assets through promulgation of an ordinance.
Talking to media persons after selection of audit cases and launching of new FBR website here at Board's headquarters on Thursday, Hammad Azhar said that the government obtained information from 29 countries about 152,000 foreign bank accounts of Pakistanis stashed with $11 billion. Out of $11 billion, $4 or $5 billion was declared through their income tax returns or whitened through amnesty schemes in the past and the remaining $6 to $7 billion was found to be undeclared money, he added.
He said that it is premature to say anything about the revenue impact of the new amnesty scheme. "Before going after the non-filers, we want to give them a last opportunity to declare their assets," he said. At the same time, an aggressive broadening of tax base campaign would be launched against non-filers.
Hammad Azhar came down hard on Ishaq Dar and stated that an absconder on allegations of corruption is sitting abroad who first of all should come back and surrender himself before the court of law. He said that the former finance minister had claimed to bring back rupee against dollar at Rs 120 per dollar but they are unable to understand his economic theory where twin deficits were allowed to hike but he continued managing rupee at an overvalued rate.
He said the foreign currency reserves were increased to $24 billion through borrowed money. He said the country was brought to the brink of collapse.
He said the circular debt pushed up to Rs 600 billion during the last year of PML-N-led regime.
Referring to a book written by noted economist Dr Hafiz A Pasha, the minister of state for revenue said that the economic history proved that the last ten years had showed worst economic performance since 1971. He said that Dr Hafiz Pasha is one of the most respectful and credible economists of the country. He said the PTI-led government took steps to reduce the massive imbalances confronting the economy on front of trade deficit and current account deficit. He said that no target was fixed on exchange rate with the IMF. He said that now "economic hit man" is plunging into speculation and asked the former finance minister to return back and face the court of law.
Responding to a query, he said that the pace of piling up of circular debt reduced as it would be brought down from Rs 450 billion to Rs 250 billion through various steps and line losses would also be reduced by 2 percent from existing 18.5 percent.
He said that data is available and stage has come where no one could run from enforcement of tax laws. Talking about revenue shortfall, the minister said the FBR is facing shortfall of Rs 300 billion in first nine months of the current fiscal year owing to reduced tax rate on POL products, suspension of telecom tax by the Supreme Court of Pakistan, revision of income tax slabs and import compression in a big way.
He said that Minister for Communications Murad Saeed did not know that Ishaq Dar had given wrong figure of $200 billion on floor of the House about Swiss bank accounts. He said that the finalised GDP growth stood at 5.2 percent for the last fiscal year 2017-18 instead of provisional figure of 5.8 percent. It is now projected that the GDP growth would be standing at 4 percent as they want to achieve sustainable growth instead of creation of an artificial bubble.
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