ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has established six Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) Zones across the country at RTOs Peshawar, Multan, Quetta and LTUs Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore.
Pakistan will be able to get access to foreign financial details of its nationals from 104 countries under global treaties on AEOI by September 2018.
For the purpose, an isolated Centre, dedicated for receipt of information and data processing, has been established in the FBR Headquarters. The centre has been secured both physically and virtually and all the AEOI data shall be accessed; processed and transferred only from the AEOI Centre by dedicated human resource.
All activities and transactions in the AEOI Centre would be monitored and recorded and only the designated officers would have access to the information in the AEOI Centre of FBR Headquarters.
According to the Standing Operating Procedure (SOP) for AEOI, the information to be received from various jurisdictions on automatic basis under a bilateral or multilateral agreement/instrument shall be cross-matched with the existing database in the AEOI Centre.
The AEOI was an initiative of Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) members and Pakistan has committed to starting exchange of information of financial accounts on automatic basis from September 2018.
A list, which earlier comprised 88 countries to start exchange of information of financial accounts on automatic basis, has now been extended to 104 countries including Switzerland, Faroe Islands, British Virgin Islands, India, Russian Federation, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and Islands of the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Seychelles, Saint Maarten, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, Turks & Caicos Islands, United Kingdom, Uruguay and others.