Omer Zaheer Meer
The finance bill for financial year 2015-16 was passed by the National Assembly with some amendments and released as the Finance Act 2015-16. The opposition’s walkout on 23rd June 2015 allowed the finance ministry officials an easy outing with the Treasury benches rendering their support for granting the approval to the finance bill. There have been positive developments in some areas while much is left to be desired in others. The finance minister explained his constraints in his budget speech when the original finance bill was floated, pointing out to the strong lobbies with vested interests and that the incumbent Government is undertaking reforms in a phased manner. We’ll discuss some major reforms, their impact on businesses and economy as well as the reaction of the impacted segments towards them in this write-up.
This is first of a two part write-ups on the above titled subject aimed to enlighten our readers on some of the least understood aspects of the finance act.
First up is the reduction in tax rate for companies which has been reduced for the tax years 2016, 2017 and 2018 to be 32, 31 and 30 percent of taxable income respectively. This is the fulfillment of the commitment by the incumbent Government to reduce the tax rate for corporate sector to 30 percent by 2018. The move is seen positively and welcomed by the corporate sector. Lowering the tax incidence on corporate sector is viewed as an incentive for this segment.
Interest-free loans for solar tube wells upto Rs.1 million for setting up new solar tube wells or replacing the existing tube wells with solar tube wells shall also be provided to small farm owners having landholdings of less than the 12.5 acres economic threshold. This is a positive step aimed to address both the energy crisis impacting the agricultural sector as well as providing some relief to the small farmer as most of the other measures for the agricultural sector seems to be aimed at benefitting large landowners and investors.
Next up is perhaps the most controversial and discussed about yet least understood reform of the imposition of advance tax on banking transactions by non-filers. A lot of hue and cry including strikes by traders has resulted in the original levy of 0.6 percent withholding tax halved to 0.3 percent till end of September 2015 by way of an ordinance promulgated by the President of Pakistan. The original reform required all banking companies to collect advance tax at the rate of 0.6 percent on all transactions from an account either by way of sale of any instrument including demand draft, pay order, etc. and/or transfer of any sum through cheque and other similar manners or clearing interbank transfer through cheques etc which meant that all debits (amounts taken out) of an account shall be liable to this tax.
There are a few important qualifications to this advance tax though. Firstly this is only applicable to non-filers. Secondly the provision will apply only where the sum total of payments for all transactions in an account shall exceed Rs 50,000 in a day. Also this tax will be adjustable against the tax liability if the person files his/her return of income. Furthermore, the onus is on the account holders to inform their banks/ financial institutions about their status of being a filer sans which collection will become applicable on their accounts.
Last but not the least, this provision is in addition to the existing provisions of Section 231AA of the Income Tax Ordinance where in all cases (being a filer or non-filer) a collection of tax is made on cash transactions. This effectively means that the new tax will apply to non-cash transactions of non-filers whereas section 231A and 231AA shall continue to apply on cash transactions. The rate of withholding tax on cash withdrawals under section 231A (in case of non-filers) and section 231AA (in case of both filers and non-filers) has been increased from 0.5pc to 0.6pc.
If we look at this reform from an objective perspective, though cumbersome administratively it incentivise businesses and individuals to come within the ambit of filing tax returns. The objective is to broaden the tax net. However the structural inefficiencies, rampant corruption within most tax authorities and a regressive taxation system all act as a deterrent against becoming a filer. This reform alone does not address all these issues and therefore this context can help us better appreciate the negative reaction from masses particularly businesses instead of simply dismissing their concerns as the prevalent tax avoidance culture.
Another interesting reform is the imposition of a one-time “super tax” for tax year 2015 for the rehabilitation of temporarily displaced persons on all those with income of Rs. 500 million or more as below:
(i) banking companies at 4pc
(ii) all other taxpayers at the rate of 3pc
This is an example of a reform pursuing the progressive tax regime by taxing those with higher income to the advantage of the downtrodden sections of the society. If the entire taxation system is revamped with a focus on direct taxation pursuing a progressive tax regime many of the ills facing our revenue generation and thereby economy can be rectified.
We’ll continue with some more interesting amendments, issues and structural reforms introduced by the Finance Act 2015-16 in the second and last part of this write up.