Amendments to help Pakistan in controlling offshore tax evasion, avoidance: Vishno Raja

Amendments to help Pakistan in controlling offshore tax evasion, avoidance: Vishno Raja

KARACHI: Amendments to Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 will help Pakistan in controlling offshore tax evasion and avoidance.

This was stated Vishno Raja Qavi, former Chief Tax Policy, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) at a seminar organized by Karachi Tax Bar Association (KTBA) on Thursday.

Qavi said that taxation system had changed drastically since Pakistan became signatory of OECD in September 2016.

The signing of international treaty the taxation of resident as well as non-resident has become very important, he said.

The government has amended several changes to Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 in order to meet international regulatory requirements, which will definitely help Pakistan to control offshore tax avoidance and evasion.

He said that Section 116A was purposely added to Income Tax Ordinance 2001 to maintain profiling of foreign assets of resident persons and pointed out that non residents are not likely to get benefit of Non Recognition Rules (Section 79 of Income Tax Ordinance, 2001).

He informed that Pakistan and India were the only two countries in Asia to achieve certification for Automatic Exchange of Information (AEOI) under the multilateral convention.

He further added that this otherwise is a huge responsibility so that data-sharing is not compromised in any way.

He however stressed that that Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreements signed by Pakistan with different countries should to be taken into account on case to case basis.

Qavi suggested that multiple field formations inside FBR like Broaden of Tax Base (BTB), Intelligence and Investigation etc. should be abolished to single jurisdiction for the sake of facilitation.

Finally he underscored that consequent to 25th Constitutional Amendment FATA & PATA will yield to Income Tax Ordinance 2001 from 2026.

Chief Commissioners including Shafqat Kehar, Badruddin Qureshi and Commissioners Maqsood Jehangir and Syedain Raza Zaidi were also present at the seminar.