March 04, 2007	Sunday	Safar 14, 1428

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LAHORE, March 3: A petition on behalf of exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif and his nephew Hamza Shahbaz challenging the evaluation of their wealth tax was filed in the Supreme Court on Saturday.

Their counsel, Malik Tariq Aziz, in the petition requested to declare the calculation of wealth tax liability under rule 8(2) CI of the Wealth Tax Rules, 1963.

He stated that the Lahore tax commissioner had directed his clients to pay over Rs10 million as wealth tax on the value of shares of their companies for four years, from 1997 to 2001, within the stipulated period.

The counsel said that under the rule the income tax department took into account the face value of shares of non-registered companies as well as their market value, and calculated the tax on whichever was higher.

By contrast, the shares of companies listed on the stock exchange were taxed in accordance with the lower value. If the market value was higher, the tax was levied on the face value and vice versa, he said.

The counsel submitted that this rule was discriminatory and in violation of not only to the parent law, the Wealth Tax Act of 1963, but also of articles 4, 18, 24, 25, 141 and 142 of the Constitution.

Earlier, Nawaz Sharif, his wife Kulsoom Nawaz, brother Shahbaz Sharif and other family members had also filed a petition challenging the wealth evaluation from the year 1994 to 1998, which is still pending before the Lahore High Court.