ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will not public names of those who have availed Tax Amnesty Scheme.
Under the Section 216 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, the FBR has refused to provide detail of these taxpayers.
The refusal letter was issued to Advocate Waheed Shahzad Butt. Earlier Butt’s letter stated that Article 19A of the Constitution of Pakistan provides access to information to a citizen subject to restrictions imposed by specific laws.
Requester Waheed Shahzad Butt states if one looks at the needy economy of Pakistan, culture of corruption, budget deficit, per capita income, begging for financial assistance by all governments and ever increasing gap between rich and the poor, there is hardly any justification to allow amnesty to certain class of taxpayers.
The government instead of entertaining any such scheme should seriously consider introducing ‘Asset-Seizure Scheme’ to confiscate undeclared /untaxed assets created from untaxed money and make laws to bring back looted money from tax cheaters.
Meanwhile, few hundred people filed returns under the one-time tax amnesty scheme until June 8, 2018, contributing a sum of nearly Rs350 million to the national exchequer since the scheme’s inception two months ago.
The scheme became effective from April 10 and will run till June 30, 2018. This is the fourth in a series tax amnesty scheme the PML-N government has offered in its five years term of government.
Official believes that one of the reasons why people are reluctant is that those intended to take benefit of the scheme both inside and outside Pakistan was waiting for the final outcome of the case on amnesty scheme in the Supreme Court of Pakistan.
A Supreme Court bench is expected to commence hearing on the matter at the Lahore registry on Monday (June 11) for which notices have already been issued to the stakeholders.
