NA body forms sub-committee to check unjustified price hike

ISLAMABAD: Chairman National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs Thursday formed a sub-committee to review the reasons behind unjustified price hike of various commodities including cements, flour, sugar and air tickets.

The chairman also directed that the sub committee should submit its report on the matter after detailed reviews and discussions. The sub committee would be headed by by MNA Faiz Ullah He also directed to write a letter to the Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) asking what actions it had taken so far to curb the unjustified price hike in the country.

Meanwhile, the committee was informed that an amount of Rs 70 billion was received under the Asset Declaration Scheme. Member Inland and Revenue Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar while briefing the Committee said that at present the FBR had in total 2 million tax filers in its system out of which more than 125,000 were those who entered into tax net recently under the Asset Declaration Scheme.

He said that exporters and importers were the main source of tax revenues.

He said after signing a treaty with are the main people, who have money abroad and after signing the treaty with Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the FBR managed to receive data of expatriate Pakistanis residing in 28 countries.

So far, he said 152,000 account details had been received by the FBR and “We have selected 6,050 accounts to check the detail of their assets.”

The committee was further informed that out of the 6,050 selected accounts of the expatriate Pakistanis, 3500 people availed the Asset Declaration Scheme and declared their assets, while the Board was reviewing the details of remaining account holders.

He informed the committee that the FBR had issued notices to as many as 500,000 to file their income tax returns.

While in meeting, the Chairman Committee expressed the strong reservations on procedure and system to catch the non–filers and urged to improve the system on the modern lines.

MNA Hina Rabbani Khar stressed on adopting professional way to persuade the non filers for paying their tax.

The committee recommended for developing coordination between FBR and provinces to settle the issues of property tax and market prices and directed FBR to immediately release a clarification in this regard. MNAs Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha, Nafisa Shah, Hina Rabbani Khar, Faiz Ullah, Sardar Nasrullah Khan Dreshak , Faheem Khan, Dr Rumesh Kumar Vankwani, Ali Pervaiz and Senior officials of FBR attended the meeting.