ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is not ready to act against the Pakistani owners of offshore companies and seeks further investigations into the Panama Leaks issue. Therefore, FBR has decided to send all these cases to the Regional Tax Offices (RTOs).
According to the sources, FBR Chairman Dr Muhammad Irshad and other board members have formally given the approval to send the cases to the RTOs. However, 40 Pakistani owners of the offshore companies, including the prime minister’s sons, Hussain Nawaz and Hassan Nawaz, have claimed that they were non-residents and Pakistani tax laws did not apply on them.
Now the FBR will scrutinize each and every case and then forward the same to the relevant RTO. The FBR sources confirmed that if it is proved that they were really non-residents Pakistanis than the FBR would not take any legal action against them because Pakistani tax laws did not apply on them. If they are living abroad for more than six months or 180 days, they are considered as non-resident Pakistanis and according to the tax provisions they were not bound to file tax returns.
The Regional Tax Offices of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi will investigate around 500 cases of Pakistani nationals with the coordination of other relevant federal and provincial government departments.
