SOHAIL SARFRAZ

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister’s Advisor on Revenues Haroon Akhtar Khan has said the amnesty scheme is fully compliant with confidentiality clauses of OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) and reminded that predicate offences like corruption money as well as drug and terror financing

are excluded from this scheme.

Haroon Akhtar Khan said this while talking to reporters after launching Restaurant Information Management System (RIMS) here at FBR’s headquarters on Wednesday.

He said the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) was fully backing that fresh amnesty scheme and it would be unfortunate if that scheme failed to get the desired results.

“With success of amnesty scheme, we can generate $5 to $10 billion; thus, overcoming challenge of managing current account deficit and having no need to approach any international lenders for seeking another bailout package. If this scheme fails, there could be two main reasons one the negative propaganda done against it and second Pakistanis did not have much money stashed into their foreign accounts,” he maintained.

To another query regarding concerns raised by Financial Action Task Force (FATF), he said the government had excluded criminal offences from this scheme and it would help satisfying the FATF.

He said the Financial Action Task Force has not shown concerns on the scheme. The queries raised by the task force have been duly responded by the government. All concerns of the task force would be removed following exclusion of criminal offences from the amnesty scheme.

Usually the money laundering was linked with Hawala which was not true, he said, adding it was linked with criminal proceeds. He cited example of MQM’s leader Altaf Husssain as the UK authorities had confiscated 500,000 pounds but UK court acquitted him because it could not be linked with criminal offence.

When asked about legal and moral authority of the outgoing regime to come up with such an amnesty scheme and reduction in tax rates massively, he replied the government was empowered under the Constitution to take measures till the last moment of its power.

He also cited example of outgoing provincial assemblies that had elected senators for next six years despite the fact that those provincial assemblies possessed tenure of just two-and-a-half-month period.

The incoming government would have powers to scrap this amnesty scheme, he also said.

To another query why FBR was not defending the amnesty scheme, he denied it and said FBR chairman was fully defending the scheme. Different point of views existed but after the announcement of scheme, the FBR is standing behind this scheme.

He said that non-filers would have to bear extra burden in the upcoming budget as well, while filers would be facilitated on all accounts.

When asked this amnesty carries carrot but lacks stick, he replied that no one would be able to buy property without coming into tax net after becoming filer. The FBR will have to be informed about source of money for more than ten million rupees remittances.

He said the government would be able to purchase property if declared at lower rates and it would be done along with Finance Bill 2018. It was not done through presidential ordinances because the Center wants to convince the provinces to come up with mutually agreed solutions.

Earlier, in his address, he said reforms were underway in the FBR without any interventions. He said the use of technology would facilitate taxpayers but it would also help identifying consumption pattern of under filers and non-filers. “We have linked with NADRA, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) and others to get information about consumption pattern and if it found match, there would not be problem but if got mismatched, then polite notice would be issued for compliance,” he added.

FBR has launched the RIMS, a technological based solution that enables monitoring of sales on real time basis thus reducing the human interface and bringing transparency in the tax collection process.

The prime objective of web-based RIMS is to facilitate the taxpayers by relying on modern techniques to tap the difference between current and potential collection.

The ceremony was attended by Senator Haroon Akhtar Khan, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Revenue, Sheikh Amir Waheed Tariq, President ICCI, and Khurram Khan, representative from restaurant association.

It is appreciable that RIMS has so far been successfully installed in 80 plus renowned restaurants operating in the federal capital and further implementation in remaining restaurants is in process.

The FBR, as a part of its ongoing strategy, is committed to relying more on use of modern techniques to bring about efficiency and effectiveness in tax collection. The FBR is all set to work in close collaboration with chambers and restaurants associations to ensure application of this system in all restaurants of Islamabad.

Later on, Haroon Akhtar also informed that the FBR launched Restaurant Information Management System and added that the FBR is considering to announce a scheme for luring customers to get receipts from restaurants after paying tax on service.