Deadline for govt’s Asset Declaration Scheme to end today

ISLAMABAD: The deadline for the government’s Asset Declaration Scheme will end today, after it was extended till July 3.

On Sunday, Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh had said overseas Pakistanis must benefit from the scheme.

“The government intends to form a commission on benami properties,” Shaikh said.

The federal government had introduced the Asset Declaration Scheme 2019 in May.

Speaking to APP, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Shabbar Ziadi shared that more than 95,000 people have registered their undeclared assets so far with the FBR by availing the Asset Declaration Scheme.

“The Asset Declaration Scheme provides a golden chance to people to declare their undeclared assets by paying a little amount of tax on,” Ziadi said.

He added, “Tax-filing was the responsibility of every citizen to ensure growth and development of the country. With the new initiatives the government has eliminated the concept of non-filer in the tax system and henceforth it would be hard for any citizen to remain out to tax-loop now.”

Zaidi further said, he was optimistic that the Asset Declaration Scheme would be successful, however once again clarified that the deadline for the scheme would not be extended further.

He said, the purpose of this scheme was not revenue generation, rather it was more concerned about the documentation of the economy by encouraging more and more people to file their returns.

He added, that documenting the national economy was the top priority of the government.

“The FBR had already obtained data of properties and assets of people and that was also put on TBR web portal, which could be accessed by any interested person Replying to a question, regarding reforms in FBR,” he said adding, the government wanted institutional reforms in the board and a strategy had already been devised to modernize the functions of FBR.

“We want to change the whole structure of FBR to improve the taxation system for broadening the tax base,” the chairman added.