Tax Amnesty Scheme To Be Announced Soon
Tax Amnesty Scheme To Be Announced Soon: On the upcoming budget 2018-19 consultation have started and proposed tax amnesty scheme for declaration of offshore assets under Foreign Asset Declaration Scheme (FADS), to bring them into tax net will be part of the consultations this year.
Under the proposed tax amnesty scheme government have planned to rationalize tax rates in the upcoming budget adding that in order to provide relief to salaried class, the government would propose raising the minimum threshold for charging income tax to Rs800,000 from current Rs400,000.
Five amnesty schemes were announced by PPP and PML N elected governments and were unsuccessful to obtain the desired results. Out of these five, PML-N government had offered three schemes. First one was in December 2013 when an amnesty was given to those investing in selected industries after asking their sources of investment. The second one involved small-traders being offered a registration scheme in 2015 where their initial capital was exempted from disclosure of sources. The third one was to improve valuations in the real-estate sector.
Shaukat Tareen is the appointed convener by the Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi for Economic Advisory Council (EAC) meetings. The government omitted Dr Ishrat Hussain Ex governor State Bank Of Pakistan from the EAC because he was considered among the top candidates for the slot of premier into caretaker setup. Dr Ishrat Hussain said that he had served in the EAC for several years so it was good move to replace by bringing new people into fold of the EAC. Other critics of economic policies of PML-N led regime were also excluded from the EAC.
In previous years EAC included Adviser to PM on Finance, Special Assistant to PM on Revenues, Minister of State for Finance and Governor State Bank of Pakistan. EAC this year is comprised of banking, financial and corporate sector experts comprising of members including Dr Ali Cheema Professor LUMS and non-official member of NFC representing Punjab, Shahid Kardar former governor State Bank of Pakistan, Atif Bajwa banking and financial sector expert, Ms Sima Kamil CEO united Bank Limited, Abid Hassan former country director World Bank, Sultan Ali Allana Chairman, Board of Directors Habib Bank Limited(HBL), Arif Habib corporate sector, Fawad Anwar corporate sector, Asif Riaz Tata corporate sector, Abid Qayum Sulehri Managing Director Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Salman Akram Raja Advocate and Muhammad E Tasneem Agriculture Specialist.