ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad district administration on Tuesday gave a seven-day’s deadline to the residents who were defaulting on payment of taxes on purchase or sale of properties from 2012 to 2020.

If all goes as planned, the government will collect over Rs2.3 billion in terms of the capital value tax, advance tax and gain tax.

The revenue department of the capital has set seven days’ deadline, asking the residents to submit their taxes otherwise their mutations of land will be cancelled.

A notice from the ICT revenue department stated: “The general public is hereby informed that who have purchased/sold properties in Patwar Circles/Revenue Circles of ICT, Islamabad are hereby directed to submit within seven days capital value tax (CVT), advance tax and gain tax in government treasury/FBR (RTO) Islamabad for the period 01-07-2012 to 17-04-2020.”

Decision to be challenged in court as these taxes were abolished in 2020, says representative of realtors

In case of non-compliance, it warned, all mutations will be cancelled and strict legal action will be taken against the defaulters. Anyone who has submitted the taxes should provide original challans to their concerned revenue circles along with other necessary documents for updating of the data.

When contacted, Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Hamza Shafqaat confirmed to Dawn that the government had decided to collect the taxes from the defaulters.

The DC, who is also the district collector, said due to litigation a number of people did not deposit the taxes. However, courts decided in favour of the government and now it has been decided to collect the pending taxes from the defaulters.

He said though in 2020 the government abolished the taxes, the pending dues are to be recovered. “These are federal government/FBR taxes and we are bound to comply with its directive,” the DC said.

Speaking to Dawn, Tehsildar Islamabad Awais Khan said though all three taxes were abolished in April 2020, many people did not deposit their dues from 2012 onward and now they are being given seven days to submit their due taxes otherwise mutations of their land would be cancelled.

While explaining the rate of taxes, he said under CVT tax, people were supposed to submit Rs60,000 per kanal and pay one per cent of the total amount as advance tax for filers and two per cent for non-filers. Similarly, under the gain tax, those who sold their property/land within three years after purchase were supposed to pay one per cent of the total value of the property (two per cent for non-filers).

To a query, he said due to court cases, the revenue department was unable to collect the taxes between 2012-2020 until the government abolished it. He said there was also an audit para under which the “government has been directing us to collect the pending taxes.”

He requested the citizens to voluntarily deposit their pending taxes to avoid cancellation of mutations (transfer deeds).

Real Estate Federation’s PresidentSardar Tahir Mahmood said the decision of the government was not workable as it was strange that people were being asked to pay dues of previous eight years when the taxes were abolished in 2020.

“We will challenge the decision in court of law,” he said.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2022