8pc amnesty declarants avail pay-later option
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ISLAMABAD: Around eight per cent of the total declarants have opted for pay-later option under the Tax Amnesty Scheme, 2019.
The total tax collections under these declarations are estimated to be around Rs10.9 billion.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is in the process of analysing the data to ascertain outcome of the scheme in terms of assets declarations and revenue collection.
The pay later option is only available to those individuals who have declared their assets before the June 30 deadline. The scheme was extended only for three days until July 3.
The facility allows declarants an extra year to pay their taxes with different default surcharge rates on a quarterly basis until June 30, 2020.
Official data available with Dawn shows that until July 3 deadline, a total of 124,118 individuals have availed the government’s amnesty by paying Rs65.8bn in taxes and declaring assets worth Rs3 trillion.
Further break-up of the data shows that 114,228 individuals opted for instant tax payment option and paid Rs57bn within the due date in addition to declaring their assets to avoid paying higher tax rates.
The 2019 scheme managed to attract 122,940 individuals to declare their wealth and pay taxes compared to 76,952 in 2018; an increase of 59.76pc or 45,988 individuals.
However, in terms of tax collection, the FBR collected Rs55bn in taxes under the 2019 amnesty scheme against Rs75.2bn in 2018; a decline of 26.86pc.
Around 2,181 individuals declared their offshore assets in the 2019 scheme.
In terms of revenue realisation of overseas assets, FBR received tax amount of Rs10.79bn in 2019 amnesty against Rs46.26bn revenue over the last scheme, showing a decline of 76.6pc.
The government also mandated the individuals availing the amnesty scheme to file income tax returns for the tax year 2018 or revised return, the financial statement and wealth statement.
“We have received more than 100,000 new return filers due to the amnesty scheme”, a senior tax official told Dawn.
FBR has received as many as 2.522 million returns for tax year 2018. “This is a big achievement for the FBR in terms of broadening the tax base”, the official said.
Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2019
