Despite getting legal powers to tax
offshore assets, the FBR's drive to collect revenue from these people has so far remained unsuccessful.
The bill includes three main sections dealing with the concealment of
offshore assets, namely 192B, 195A and 195B.
As previous schemes, its purpose was to encourage people to become tax filers by being allowed to declare their hidden domestic and
offshore assets. As per the scheme, tax evaders were given an opportunity to declare their hidden domestic and
offshore assets at 5% tax rate.
People successfully managed to transfer their ill-gotten money to offshore destinations from Pakistan due to weak taxation system, economic protection act, 1992 and other reasons and purchased
offshore assets without declaring them in their tax returns.
He recently also advised the Supreme Court in a case concerning
offshore assets owned by Pakistanis.
The chairman NAB had said those who had illegally plundered wealth in the country had made big
offshore assets like plazas and valuable assets in different countries.
The authorities were not very keen to offer the tax amnesty scheme on the
offshore assets.
The FBR Chairman briefed the Prime Minister about the progress on the steps taken to detect
offshore assets and properties of Pakistani citizens and the recovery of taxable amount under the country's laws.
Meanwhile, after making a formal protest over the absence of the finance minister and ministry secretary, the Senate Standing Committee on Finance has rejected the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government's move for provisional assessment of
offshore assets and disallowing tax incentives for PSL (Pakistan Super League) franchises for sports.
The scope of this Section is proposed to be extended to discovery of undeclared
offshore assets through the current Finance Bill.
FBR said it already had information about bank accounts of Pakistanis from 26 countries and the proposed amendment to Section 123 of the ITO would enable the tax collection body to move swiftly for taxing people involved in holding
offshore assets.
ON the face of it, the latest Federal Government Executive Order (008) on the regularisation of
offshore assets would appear to be a step in the right direction.