KARACHI, July 19: The local tax authorities are seeking powers to crack down on real estate agents who are involved in booking properties in Dubai resulting in flight of capital from the country, official sources told Dawn on Tuesday.

“We are seeking the list of properties and names of Pakistanis who have booked real estate properties in Dubai,” a high official of the local tax department confided to Dawn.

The official said that 11 booking agents had been identified and they had been asked to furnish the list of people who booked such properties in Dubai. “So far these agents have not provided any list and it seems that they are not ready to cooperate with the tax department,” he added.

However, the tax officials were now seeking powers from the CBR to conduct raids on the offices of these booking agents.

“The government wants to check the flight of capital from the country and under the Prime Minister’s Secretariat these lists are being sought from the booking agents,” the official asserted.

The official said that penalties had also been imposed on these booking agents but they didn’t respond to positively.

“Once we get the powers from the CBR to conduct raids, the tax officials will immediately take action against these agents who are not cooperating and have so far not given any list of those people who purchased properties in Dubai,” he maintained.

Responding to a question the official said that the department had identified around 11 booking agents who were directly involved in business of real estate in Dubai and were operating from Karachi.

Recently there had been massive print and electronic media campaign for the sale of Dubai properties worth million of dollars.

This suddenly changed the posture of local properties as people with huge funds diverted their investment to Dubai.

This gave a wake up call to the government who immediately took action and started a probe into the matter.