Under a newly-signed agreement, Pakistan will have access to the information about assets of its nationals abroad, it emerged on Monday. The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has obtained information regarding immovable properties owned by Pakistanis in the United Kingdom (UK).The information has been obtained with the assistance of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and UK tax authorities, said FBR in a brief statement, adding that the information was being analysed by the board for taking further action.
Pakistan had signed the OECD Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters in September 2016, and Multilateral Convention to Implement Tax Treaty Related Measures to Prevent Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS) as well as Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Accounts (MCAA) in June 2017.
Becoming signatory of the OECD Convention facilitates international cooperation on national tax laws and provides administrative cooperation among member countries to combat tax evasion. The government had recently announced amnesty schemes including Voluntary Declaration of Domestic Assets Act, 2018, and Foreign Assets (Declaration and Repatriation) Act, 2018, which received unprecedented response.Over 55,225 declarations have been filed with declared value of foreign assets around Rs577 billion and domestic assets around Rs1192 billion.
The declarants paid around Rs97 billion taxes including Rs36 billion on foreign assets and Rs61 billion on domestic assets, whereas $40 million were repatriated.
The original closing date for filing declarations under the amnesty scheme was June 30, 2018, which has now been extended till July 31.
Published in Daily Times, July 17th 2018.
