ISLAMABAD: Despite severe protest by the Opposition parties, the National Assembly has adopted the tax amnesty bill, which aims to bring traders in tax net.
The opposition members staged a walkout protest, when Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid on behalf of Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, who is abroad, put Income Tax (Amendment) Act, 2016 before the House.
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The opposition termed the scheme an injustice to honest taxpayers. The amnesty scheme will apply to both non-filers and filers of income tax returns. The bill has been passed with two amendments in the draft presented before the house earlier this month.
According to the original draft, legislators and people convicted in cases of narcotics trade, terrorism and money-laundering were barred from availing themselves of the scheme. Legislators and convicted people have now been placed in separate categories. Another amendment has barred traders from declaring profits on debt and dividends, etc, under the scheme.
Talking on the bill, Opposition Leader Syed Khurshid Shah said the scheme would shake confidence of honest taxpayers. Citing past examples he said that the schemes had brought no relief to the government or people.
Parliamentary Secretary for Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs Rana Afzal Khan said the credit went to the PML-N government for bringing traders into voluntarily tax scheme. Tax amnesty schemes had been introduced in the past only to benefit profiteers, black-marketers and smugglers, but no waiver had been given to such people in the new scheme.
