ISLAMABAD/KARACHI – The PPP government has offered a lucrative scheme to ‘swindlers, plunderers, smugglers and corruption monsters’ to whiten their black money, the sources said on Friday.
As per the economic observers, the plan is simple enough: invest in stocks, pay tax and get your black money legalised. This scheme  in the garb of generating more funds through levying of Capital Gains Tax on the stocks – is yet another feather in the cap of the ruling federal government, which in its four-year rule have gifted the people with an unprecedented number of huge financial and other scandals and scams.
The good luck tablet for the corruption whales will be sealed through the pen of non-other-than the president  of this one of the most corrupt states in the world  Asif Ali Zardari, who himself faces a Supreme Court order requiring the government to write to Swiss authorities for reopening graft case against him, the sources said. And this looters’ spree will effectively start from April 1 of the running year. Sources told TheNation that proposed amnesty scheme, to be brought in through a presidential ordinance, aims at attracting investment in the reeling stock markets of the country and bring revenue to the cash strapped government during remaining period (April-June) of the ongoing financial year 2011-2012.
As part of the new package, the Capital Gains Tax (CGT) would be imposed from April 1 this year with all amendments and the FBR (Federal Board of Revenue) will not ask about the source of income of any stake holder, Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shiek announced during his visit to Karachi Stock Market on Friday.
Under the amendments agreed to by FBR Tax Reform Committee and KSE officials, anybody who holds shares and keeps them for four months, would be liable to pay CGT with 0.02 pc CVT (Capital Value Tax), sources said. If any share holder sold the shares before 120 days, he will pay the CGT and 0.01pc CVT, they added.
The CGT was imposed on stock exchanges in 2008 and as per the existing law, each stock player has to pay the 10 percent of its profit to government and is bound to give the details of his/her source of income to the Federal Board of Revenue.
Though people associated with the stock markets have welcomed the new plan, different economists have held it a recipe of economic disaster as they say it would encourage more corruption in the country. After getting this unconditional and open ‘pre-arrest bail’, the corrupt will indulge in more and more corruption thus giving a rise to an unending corruption spiral.
They said it was tantamount to giving a license to the looters, illegal arms and drug barons. They advised the government to opt for other ways for inviting investment and generating revenue.
Opposing the proposed scheme, the eminent economist and National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Business School Dean Dr Ashfaq Hassan Khan said that government is promoting the corruption in ‘legal way’. This move would open doors to corruption and so many other evils, he added.
Dr Salman Shah, former adviser on Finance and Economic Affairs, said that government should announce comprehensive tax package instead of such short-run measure for bringing new investment in the country. He further said that government should also control the sources of black money. The government should also decrease the tax rate so that tax evasion could be controlled in the country, which would help in broadening the tax base, he added.
Some other economists were of the view that such amnesty and money whitening schemes were a betrayal to and cheating with the honest taxpayers.