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ISLAMABAD: The government’s recently launched tax amnesty scheme may come under the scrutiny as the Supreme Court has dropped hints of putting the money whitening plan under judicial review.
“We will see the amnesty scheme,” observed Chief Justice of Pakistan Mian Saqib Nisar while hearing a case relating to encroachment of 87 kanals of government land in Faisalabad.
“We are seriously contemplating taking stern action over illegal properties and assets abroad,” the chief justice observed with a direction to the court office to fix the hearing of a suo motu case regarding holding of properties and banks accounts in foreign countries.
On April 5, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi unveiled a populist Economic Reforms Package (ERP) envisaging another ‘one-time’ amnesty scheme to whiten undeclared assets at home and abroad, reduction in income tax rates for existing tax payers and the issuance of dollar denominated bond.
Read: Amnesty mystery
Under the assets amnesty scheme the government intends to offer one-time amnesty to those not paying taxes at present to become taxpayers and whiten their assets both local and foreign by setting aside their past.
‘We will see the amnesty scheme’, observes Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar
On March 26, the Supreme Court constituted a 12-member committee and tasked it with tracing and encouraging Pakistani nationals to volunteer by declaring assets stashed abroad.
The committee headed by the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) furnished before the court a set of proposals in the shape of terms of reference (ToR) that was devised during a meeting held in the SBP office in Islamabad on March 21.
The terms suggest conducting a diagnostic analysis of the current landscape related to outflow of foreign exchange from Pakistan resulting in accumulation of assets abroad by Pakistani citizens.
The committee will also examine existing legal regime and practices, especially related to foreign exchange and taxation, bilateral treaties and multi-lateral conventions that can be used to stem the unregulated outflow of foreign exchange from Pakistan, trace undeclared assets held abroad by Pakistani citizens and retrieve such assets, especially the ones generated with proceeds of crime.
Published in Dawn, Aprill 13th, 2018
