LAHORE: In a major development, the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has asked the government to give it access to local and offshore tax records of all politically exposed persons, bureaucrats and their families by introducing new legal amendments before approval of the budget.
The bureau has recommended four major amendments in the Income Tax Ordinance 2001 through the Finance Bill 2021, which the National Assembly is expected to approve next week on Tuesday. These proposals, if accepted by the government, will allow NAB to even reopen the past and closed transactions of the last 20 years, official documents showed.
The “request” for bringing these amendments in the Income Tax Ordinance with effect from the year 2001 is made at a time when the bureaucracy has already been complaining about overdoing by NAB. The opposition parties too have lodged protests over what they call “witch-hunting” by NAB.
NAB has asked to end immunity in sharing of local and offshore tax records of politically exposed persons including the members of parliament, bureaucracy, public servants and people in service of Pakistan, the holders of public office and their spouses and children, the documents showed.
The sources said that the government’s top tier was reviewing NAB’s request and the decision will be taken by Prime Minister Imran Khan.
“The secretary law has forwarded NAB’s request to the finance ministry and they have to take a decision whether to accept these proposals or not,” Law Minister Barrister Farogh Naseem said.
“The government believes in transparency and rule of law and to stop wrongdoings by public office holders and politically exposed persons … there is a need to end layers of secrecy,” Barrister Naseem said.
