ISLAMABAD: Advisor to the Prime Minister on Revenue, Haroon Akhter Khan has said after passage of recent finance bill, real estate will no more be a safe haven for the black money.
Speaking in a private news channel program late Wednesday, Haroon Akhter said over the decades, thousands of billions rupees were invested in the real estate on speculative prices to evade tax and secure the black money.
"After passage of the Finance Bill 2016, now this money would be brought into tax net and price of property would be evaluated by third party under the notification of the State Bank of Pakistan," he said.
Haroon said billions of rupees of black money was invested in this sector right under the node of the governments but now we are going to discontinue the DC rate and a third party evaluation would be done where the government would deem it necessary.
Answering a question, he said, this decision does not mean to discourage investors but is aimed at bringing this money into the tax net. "We do not want to discourage them but will give them incentive for documentation of this sector of economy. We have certain rules for the purpose and some more rules will be put in place."
The Advisor said across the world the economies are struggling against tax evasion and flight of black money and Pakistan will have to move along them. "It is an opportunity for us to bring back black money as well as tax it locally to flourish our economy."
He said the tax paid through this business would be used in productive activity and some out of box solutions would be introduced to encourage the capital holder for paying taxes.
"We shall have to bite the bullet and take decisions to strengthen economy. If our people pay taxes properly, Pakistan will have no need to borrow money from financial institutions."
He said there is lot of potential in our economy so what is needed is to reinforce Central Board of Revenue and put in place proper tax collection mechanism that may double the revenue in coming years.
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