ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is going to form teams of young people to complete the valuation of immoveable properties in remaining cities of country by the end of current fiscal year 2016-17.
FBR Chairman Nisar Muhammad Khan said that the teams will be spread over the country to almost every city or town having population around 1.5 million except 21 big cities where valuation for properties and lands has already been issued by the board. In this regard, the FBR is likely to recruit university and college students to accomplish the task during prescribed time period.
Under the newly proposed amendments in the Income Tax Ordinance 2001, the FBR specified four major cities for valuation of cost of properties to generate more revenue by charging four percent of withholding tax on land transactions.
However, the realtors showed concerns over it and lamented against the discrimination of imposition of said tax in four cities only and sparing rest of the country.
Taking the protest and complaints into consideration, now the FBR is inclined towards complete valuation of properties and lands across the country by the end of current fiscal year. In this regard, services of young university and college students will be hired along with good stipend for completion of task.
According to a well conducted survey, total tune of housing industry in the country is around Rs 186 billion and it provides jobs to millions of people; however, stakeholders of this industry are not willing to pay the withholding tax as per valuation of lands made by the FBR.
Officials claimed that it is also a fact that FBR’s valuation of properties is several times lesser than the actual price of the lands and properties; even then the real state sector is not ready to pay the tax in specified amount.
