Taxation proposals: Incentives for foreign investors to be improved

Government focuses on increasing FDI, broadening the tax net

KARACHI: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Revenue Haroon Akhtar has expressed confidence that the vastly improved macro-economic parameters will provide a launching pad for growth-oriented economic policies in the upcoming budget.

In an interactive session with leading foreign investors in Pakistan during his visit to the Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry (OICCI) to discuss its taxation proposals for the 2016-17 federal budget on Monday, he said incentives for foreign investors would be improved.

“The entire government machinery including the prime minister is focused on increasing the level of FDI in the country as per the country’s economic potential,” said Akhtar, adding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project would be a game-changer for the economy and people of Pakistan.

While appreciating OICCI’s taxation proposals, he said the government was aggressively pursuing the initiative to broaden the tax base. “The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is now very well-equipped with data and skills to catch evasion.”



He said the recently introduced Voluntary Tax Compliance Scheme (VTCS) was part of the tax broadening process and it was only a matter of time that the tax evaders, including those not paying duty on cigarettes and other products, would be caught and punished.

“Last year’s concessions worth Rs221 billion given through SROs were withdrawn and another Rs120 billion will be withdrawn in the 2016-17 budget,” he informed.

“The FBR’s IT infrastructure is undergoing substantial improvement. This would not only connect various available databases to identify new taxpayers but would also address operational issues of taxpayers.”

The special assistant to the PM found the Tax Reform Commission (TRC) to be of high quality and said he was chairing a committee to monitor its implementation on a priority basis.

Commenting on the current law and order situation, he said good policies had resulted in improvement of the country’s overall security environment, especially in Karachi and Balochistan.

Highlighting other achievements, he pointed to the reduction in power and gas load-shedding, fall in inflation, drop in bank borrowing rates, lower fiscal deficit, GDP growth going up from 2-3% to beyond 4.5% for the first time in many years, comfortable foreign exchange reserves, robust performance of PSX index, besides improvement in international ratings of the country.

FBR Member Tax Policy Rehmatullah Wazeer said all recommendations of the OICCI would be evaluated and some of the key FDI-related measures like extending timelines of some of the incentive schemes under Section 65 of the IT ordinance and giving additional credits for electronic invoicing would be given priority.

OICCI President Shahab Rizvi promised to review all the recommendations.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th,  2016.

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