In order to facilitate general public to avail the Tax Amnesty 2018 scheme, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has established a dedicated facilitation cell, led by Member (IT), which will be available 24x7 till the closing of the amnesty scheme.
According to an announcement of the FBR, in case of any query regarding Tax Amnesty Scheme 2018, the FBR has issued names/contact numbers of tax officers to respond to the queries on the amnesty scheme.
Meanwhile, the FBR has clarified that that no tax including income tax, sales tax and FED shall be payable on the undisclosed income and assets declared under the Voluntary Declaration of Domestic Assets Act, 2018.
The FBR was responding to the query that according to section 8(2) of the Voluntary Declaration of Domestic Assets Act, 2018, no tax is payable under any law for the time being in force including the Income tax Ordinance, 2001 where tax has been paid in respect of undisclosed income and domestic assets. Please clarify? query added.
The FBR has also received a query that a person has undisclosed domestic and foreign assets. What are the possible consequences if he doesn't file declaration for such undisclosed assets?
Responding to this, FBR said that due to OECD initiatives for promoting transparency and exchange of information on tax matters, offshore tax evasion and avoidance is higher likelihood of coming to the notice of tax administration. Pakistan is signatory to OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters which has been signed by most of the countries around the globe. Pakistan is poised to receive information in the latter half of 2018 in respect of offshore financial accounts. The said information of bank accounts maintained by Pakistanis abroad shall be provided by those jurisdictions automatically. Against this backdrop, amnesty on foreign assets is an opportunity for Pakistanis to declare undisclosed foreign assets at very low rates without incurring any penalties.
Time limitation to probe sources of foreign assets, investments and expenditures has been removed through Finance Act, 2018. As a result of this amendment, any foreign asset discovered in any year is liable to be taxed.
The immunity from probe in respect of foreign remittances has been limited to Rs 10 million per year through Finance Act, 2018. Any amount received beyond this threshold shall be liable to be probed and taxed.
Law of controlled foreign companies has been introduced, through Finance Act, 2018, and any income from investment in foreign entities has been made taxable.
Therefore, any investment and income there from not disclosed shall be taxed, FBR added.*Through Finance Act, 2018, filing of foreign income and asset statement has been made mandatory and failure to file or disclose foreign assets in the statement shall be liable to penalty of 2% of the value of the asset or income for each year of default.