ISLAMABAD - The special meeting of the federal cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday decided to keep pending the proposed tax amnesty scheme till next week.
“The cabinet decided that some provisions need further fine tuning and therefore the matter is pended for the next cabinet meeting,” Information Minister Chaudhry Fawad Hussain said in a tweet after the meeting.
The minister said the cabinet deliberated on all aspects of proposed asset declaration scheme and all options came under threadbare discussion.
Prime Minister Imran Khan had convened the special meeting after some of the ministers opposed the amnesty plan, expressed their reservations and sought further clarification.
Earlier, Fawad had told the newsmen that the cabinet meeting has been called to further deliberate upon the proposed scheme.
After the meeting, he said the approval process of the tax amnesty scheme has for the time being been suspended, adding that earlier the plan was to enforce the tax amnesty scheme within 24 hours.
He said that the cabinet wanted to discuss the amnesty scheme clause-wise after some members raised objections, but the members were not able to sufficiently discuss the scheme in Wednesday’s meeting.
Sources in the cabinet said that during the meeting held last Tuesday, Law Minister Barrister Farogh Naseem had raised the objection and told his colleagues that the draft was in violation of the Article 25 of the Constitution.
He was also supported by other cabinet members in questioning the 15 percent tax rate proposed under the scheme and its effectiveness.
Sources said that Communications Minister Murad Saeed had sought to know the difference between the proposed scheme and the similar ones which had been launched by the previous government.
Expressing his reservation over the 15 percent rate, Water Resources Minister Faisal Vawda called for its reduction to facilitate taxpayers, the sources said.
According to the sources, Defence Minister Pervez Khattak also opposed the idea, saying the scheme would give no benefit to the government as well as to the people because all such previous schemes had proved useless.
Finance Minister Asad Umar had then to postpone a scheduled press conference due to the federal cabinet’s refusal to give him green light to launch the amnesty scheme.
The government wants to launch the scheme through a Presidential Ordinance.
Prime Minister Imran Khan has also directed for preparing a media strategy to sell the tax amnesty scheme and counter the opposition parties’ propaganda.
The Federal Board of Revenue proposed three options for setting the minimum and maximum rates for repatriation of offshore assets, disclosure of domestic assets and legalisation of Benami assets, said the sources.
The FBR had proposed a minimum of 5 percent, 10 percent and a maximum of 15 percent rate for repatriation of offshore assets.
For the declaration of domestic assets, it had proposed 10 percent, 15 percent, and 20 percent rates. For clearance of Benami assets, the proposed rates were 15 percent, 20 percent, and 25 percent.
The cabinet was informed that in case the tax amnesty was not given, people would have to pay a minimum of 40 percent income tax rate in addition to risking confiscation of Benami assets.
But the debate on rates did not take place due to objections over the definition of the ineligible persons, said the sources.
The FBR proposed that all the public office holders, their children, spouses, brothers, and sisters should be ineligible for availing the scheme. The sources said that the law minister was of the view that the brothers and sisters could not be declared ineligible.
He is said to have taken a position that this might raise the question of violation of Article 25 of the Constitution that guarantees equal rights to all.
