ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Asad Umar has stated that FBR is taking all possible measures to obtain information about the Pakistani nationals’ assets in other countries for the application of tax laws while other government agencies are also working to recover assets.
He assured the parliament that upon receipt of actionable tax information about Pakistani tax-resident persons, if the funds remitted out are found to be non-tax paid/unexplained, tax demand would be raised and recovered. For this purpose, FBR is relying on Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administration Assistance in Tax matter of which Pakistan is also signatory.
The multilateral convention is an OECD initiative, which is geared to combating tax evasion through exchange of information amongst signatory states. Pakistan has already invoked Article 5 of the multilateral convention and sought information from over one dozen jurisdictions about Pakistanis who may have stashed funds therein.
Moreover, Pakistan is now in position to mutually exchange bank and financial accounts information with about 50 jurisdictions under the OECD’s Common Reporting Standard. First data exchanges under this framework took place on September 30, 2018.
FBR is currently purifying the data received which, in due course, will be shared with field formations for utilization as per law.
