ISLAMABAD: Senate Standing Committee on Finance has deferred the approval of Benami Transaction (prohibition) Bill, 2016 to its next meeting.
The committee which was presided over by Senator Saleem H Mandviwala discussed the draft of the Bill clause by clause and decided to complete the discussion in the next meeting.
The senate committee on finance has to forward the report on Bill to the upper house on or before January 03, 2017.
The National Assembly has already passed the Bill to provide for prohibition of holding property in Benami.
Briefing on Benami Transaction Bill, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Nisar Muhammad Khan said that after the enactment of the bill, the FBR would get powers to take action against those holding properties besides taking action against the people who would provide wrong information regarding Benami properties.
Saleem Mandviwala questioned that how it would be proved that the properties were not genuine. He said people have also concerns over being victimized through this law.
The FBR chairman informed that if properties are registered under the names of other family members then they would also be held responsible. “There are hundreds of thousands of Benami bank accounts in the country and a huge number of properties are also Benami”, Nisar Muhammad Khan added.
Senator Talha Mehmood said that the property transactions were being held through files and the stamp papers purchased in 2014 were also being used in 2016 and this trick was being used to avoid taxes worth millions of rupees.
Secretary Finance, Dr Waqar Masood Khan said that under the new law, the Benami properties holders would be held responsible and the Benami properties would be confiscated by the government. He however added that the Benami properties could be made legitimate before the enactment of the law.
Senator Bilour opposing this point said that the bill should not be applied on the Benami properties purchased before the enactment of the law.
He also opposed to confiscate the property and said that instead of confiscating the property, heavy penalty should be imposed.
Senator Saleem Mandviwala said that the FBR officers in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) were harassing foreign companies to take bribe from them which was giving a bad name to the country.
The FBR chairman said that although they were FBR officials but once they were deputed in AJK, they come under administrative control of AJK government. He, however, assured that the corrupt FBR officers would be called back from AJK to FBR head office and strict action would be taken against them.
