Lahore - The All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran’s Central General secretary, Naeem Mir, has asked the government to inform the public about the actual data of remittances of last 10 years, besides releasing the exact figure of corruption amount, transferred abroad through ferries, model girls and other sources and then sent back to Pakistan under the unannounced amnesty of remittances policy.
He said: “When traders demand any amnesty scheme government hesitates but highly influential elite class, consisting of both opposition and government, have been provided unannounced amnesty to whiten their black money through remittances by spending just two percent of their total capital.”
He said that 30th September is the last date of return filing and FBR should update the taxpayers as to what would be WHT rate on banking transaction after this date. Whether government will continue 0.3% WHT or it would be reverted to 0.6% after the end of September. The FBR is also bound to apprise the taxpayers that how much non-filers have been turned out to be filers in three months (July-September 2015) after implementation of WHT on banks transactions.
Naeem Mir said that APAT central committee and other groups of traders will decide the next strategy of protests and strikes in a meeting of 1ST October 2015.
He said that the whole nation is being defrauded in the name of workers remittances being sent from abroad which cannot be questioned under the income tax rules section 111 (4) of the IT Ordinance.
He said that National Accountability Bureau Prevention Committee on FBR on Tax Evasion for the federal budget 2015/2016 has also recommended that Section 111 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 may be amended.
Moreover, appropriate laws should be made to enable the government to seize local assets or levy appropriate taxes, if any person holds assets outside the country for which source of income could not be established. He suggested the government to sign bilateral agreements with countries where there is suspicion of Pakistani citizens illegally maintaining bank accounts and other assets to bring back the untaxed wealth from tax heavens abroad as being done by USA, India with Switzerland.
He said that demand raised by several quarters to restrict the remittances with mandatory requirement of providing source of sender but vested interests influenced the budget making process and succeeded to remain open the door for whitening the black money.
Naeem Mir said that the powerful elite is still honest despite tax evasion of billions of rupees but hard-earned money of small traders is being declared black money due to FBR complicated system and draconian laws.
Small traders also pay zakat while this elite eaten up this zakat money of the nation through corruption.
The FBR has chosen 64000 cases of tax filers for audit through ballot and we demand the tax authority to also choose another 64000 cases of non-filers for audit.
“The FBR can simply unearth the whole transactions made on national identity card in bank accounts, traveling, stay in hotels, property dealings and purchase of vehicles etc.
It is the duty of FBR to dig out these transactions of non-filers and manage to convert these non-filers into the tax filers if government is serous in documentation of economy.”
He suggested that the FBR itself, on the patron of utility bills, should prepare income tax return and send it to these non-filers and then audit it otherwise FBR should be closed.