Tax amnesty bill deferred for two days

Lower house passes two bills on withholding tax on transactions

ISLAMABAD:

On the insistence of opposition parties, the government deferred on Monday giving legal cover to the contentious tax amnesty scheme announced earlier this month.

On January 1, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government unveiled an amnesty scheme, allowing citizens to legalise their ‘black’ money by paying a nominal one per cent tax on it.



The controversial draft legislation has already been approved by the National Assembly’s standing committee on finance and revenue amid reservations of the opposition members in the panel.

Monday’s legislative agenda included the bill.

But realising the reservations of the opposition parties, National Assembly Speaker Ayaz Sadiq asked Zahid Hamid, the legal wizard of Nawaz-League, to negotiate with the PPP, PTI and MQM before putting the legislation for formal vote.

Zahid then requested the speaker to defer the bill till Wednesday after brief talks with the opposition members.

The opposition parties have shown reservations over the tax amnesty scheme, which the government claims was aimed at including more people into the tax net.

When the government got the draft passed from the standing committee last week, the opposition protested against leaving some ‘vague’ clauses, which they said left sources of undeclared assets – smuggling and under-reporting of income – unplugged.

Meanwhile, the lower house passed two other bills – one reducing advance income tax rate from 0.6% to 0.3% on banking transactions and the other related to exemption of withholding tax on certain transactions.



Both the laws were introduced through presidential ordinances last year.

Foreign policy

Speaker Ayaz also deferred the policy statement of Defence Minister Khawaja Asif when PTI lawmaker Shafqat Mehmood asked about the recent expulsion of Bangladeshi diplomat and the ongoing tensions between the two countries.

PTI’s Arif Alvi also asked Asif to clear the confusion about the delay in buying F-16s from the US.

The defence minister asked the speaker whether he should comment on the issue because a detailed statement had to be given by Foreign Affairs Adviser Sartaj Aziz.

It was agreed the matter would be discussed on Tuesday (today) along with other identical issues like the Saudi-Iran diplomatic tussle.

The minister also clarified the aircraft deal could not be stopped merely on the objection of one legislator.

Call attention notice

Around Rs26 billion have been allocated to the National Highway Authority for the construction of the Lowari Tunnel, which would be completed by 2017.



This was shared by PML-N’s Sheikh Aftab Ahmed, who is the minister of state for parliamentary affairs, while responding to a call attention notice about the closure of Lowari Tunnel from noon till 6pm every Friday and Tuesday.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2016.