FBR seeks details of immovable properties in UK owned by Pakistanis

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has declared on Monday that they have acquired the detailed information of the properties in possession of Pakistan’s nationals in the United Kingdom (UK), with the association of Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and UK Tax Authorities.

According to sources, it is stated that the information obtained, will be scrutinized in depth by the board officials, as FBR has expected about Rs200 to Rs300 billion to be collected on behalf of tax amnesty scheme.

The FBR officials stated that, “Yes, we have gained the details of properties of thousands of Pakistanis who possess immovable properties in United Kingdom (UK), furthermore if the owners failed to benefit from amnesty scheme then FBR will take extreme measures against them as per law after termination of amnesty scheme.”

According to data, the amnesty scheme has collected only Rs 62 billion on domestic assets and Rs36 billion on foreign assets.

However, FBR is executing their final attempt to entice the foreigners to proclaim their immovable assets, else FBR will take action against them after the cut-off date of amnesty scheme that is 31st July 2018.

However, the sources said that if

confidentiality clauses were breached then the FBR would not be able to get any information in future so the tax authorities placed all security and foolproof arrangements to protect all such information from any leaks.

The software, FBR is using to obtain the monetary facts & figures of assets and bank account details of first 1000 batch of Pakistanis via automatic exchange portal from Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is expected to be operative by 1st October 2018.

This software is used by the permission of UK based Department for International Development (DFID) for obtaining details via automatic exchange portal from OECD medium.

The caretaker government declared that people so far have provided details related to tax amnesty scheme, and 55,225 declarations are filed including Rs577 billion worth of foreign assets and Rs1192 billion worth is of domestic.

The payments made by people are almost of Rs97 billion, consisting Rs36 billion on behalf of foreign assets and 61 billion under domestic assets. However, $40 million has been sent back.

Initially the ending date for filing assertions under the amnesty scheme was 30 th June 2018, but then it was extended to 31st July 2018.