Tax amnesty package to be tabled in NA

ISLAMABAD: The government is set to announce yet another tax amnesty scheme for the realty sector: the move is said to have been pushed hard by the ruling party legislators and property dealers, who claimed that the market crashed after recent changes in property valuation rates.

The latest amnesty scheme – the fourth over the past three years – hopes to whiten about 75 percent of the black money circulating in the informal economy.



The tax amnesty package will be tabled in the National Assembly in the next few days, senior government functionaries told The Express Tribune.

The government might avoid promulgating a presidential ordinance or tabling a new bill in the National Assembly in a bid to keep the issue low-key.

Fresh amendments could be proposed in the final draft of the ‘Income Tax (Amendment) Ordinance 2016’ that the government presented in the lower house of parliament last month to provide permanent legal cover to a deal that it struck with the realty sector.



Sources said that the government might propose changes in Section 68 that dealt with fair market value, Section 111 that dealt with unexplained income or assets and Section 236-P that dealt with tax on banking transactions, of the Income Tax Ordinance, fleshing out the amnesty scheme, said the sources.  The Spokesman of the FBR did not comment on the matter.

The final meeting on property issue would be held with Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on his return from Washington, said Mian Abdul Manan, a PML-N MNA from Faisalabad.



It is learnt that the amnesty scheme is the brainchild of among others, Pervez Malik, a ruling party MNA from Lahore and Khawaja Saad Rafique, the Minister for Railways, who is said to own a housing society. Both parliamentarians were not available for comments.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 6^th, 2016.