ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan, has said that a relief of some 80 billion had been granted to the taxpayers of poor class of society through the tax amnesty scheme.
This relief is meant for a taxpayers with monthly income up to Rs 100,000 per month and this relief will enable taxpayers belonging from this group to spend more money on education and upright brought up of their children. However, these people will not become non-filers as they will require to submit their tax returns every year with status of zero rated income tax group.
He further said that increased minimum limit of income tax would make a difference of Rs 80 billion, but the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had devised an alternative comprehensive plan for the making up this shortfall of revenue.
Responding to the questions of members of the Senate Finance and Revenue committee here, Rana Afzal Khan said that the government had doubled the revenue collection in last five years therefore considered it a prime obligation to offer a relief to the taxpayers hailing from the poor segment of society; however, “we have also made some five industrial sectors zero rated” he said adding that tax amnesty scheme would not be burden for the upcoming government because ordinance pertaining to it would become ineffective by June 30 this year.
He further said that due to tightening financial rules and regulations across the globe, it would not be easy to maintain undeclared assets or funds for anyone; therefore, taking advantage of the prevailing global situation, the government had taken a quite well in time measure and introduced the tax amnesty scheme to attract more foreign exchange from Pakistanis abroad.
“Some $ 5 billion may be deposited to the national kitty if only one hundred billion undeclared dollars are declared by Pakistanis” he added saying that this amount would be sufficient for the national economic uplift because we signed extended funds facility with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2013 just for the sake of meager amount of $ 6.25 billion.
