Pak to issue notices to 1,500 Pakistani owners of properties in UK, UAE

Pakistan's top government body that investigates crimes related to taxation and money-laundering will issue show cause notices from tomorrow to nearly 1,500 Pakistanis who have purchased properties in the UK and Dubai, a media report said today.

Citing top tax officials, Dawn newspaper said that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will issue show cause notices in two phases.

In the first phase, notices will be issued to about 1,000 people who have purchased properties in the UK and receive rent regularly.

"The FBR will dispatch these notices from its headquarters," the paper quoted an official as saying.

In the second phase, another 500 people who have purchased properties in Dubai will be issued notices. These notices will be dispatched soon after completion of the first phase, the official added.

"We don't know exactly how much investment was made in the United Kingdom and Dubai," one official said.

The FBR officials believe the notices will help the taxation bodies determine whether the recipients have declared properties in Pakistan or not.

Prime Minister in-waiting Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leader and prospective finance minister, Member of National Assembly-elect Asad Umar, said that his government would rigorously pursue all those Pakistani residents who have not declared their foreign assets.

"The FBR will first ascertain whether the property owners are Pakistani residents or not. Later those Pakistanis who have not declared their properties will face legal consequences," the paper quoted him as saying.

He said his party had proposed to the government to crack down on tax evaders when it was in the opposition.

When asked whether his government will come up with any amnesty scheme, he said no such proposal was under consideration.

PTI spokesperson Fawad Chaudhry also confirmed that Khan in his recent meetings with envoys of the UK and UAE emphasised that these countries they should cooperate with Pakistan to identify those Pakistanis who piled up properties worth billions of rupees abroad.

"Their cooperation is also sought to bring back all the looted money," Chaudhry said.

Khan had conveyed to the foreign envoys that his government would take stringent measures regarding money laundering.

"There are several Pakistanis who remained part of past governments and now they own costly properties abroad. It's in the best interest of the country to bring back all the public money," the spokesperson added.

An official said the FBR had received soft data related to those Pakistanis who are not resident in Britain but have purchased properties there.

Pakistan has also become a signatory to the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development Multilateral Convention, which will start providing access to information about offshore accounts of Pakistani residents next month. This will augment the FBR's capacity to access offshore financial accounts of Pakistani residents in the signatory countries, the paper said.

According to the FBR, provisional estimates show that 82,848 individuals took advantage of the tax amnesty scheme and they have whitened assets worth Rs 2.5 trillion. Of these, 5,363 individuals declared foreign assets while 77,485 declarations were about assets at home, the paper said.

In the two-month amnesty scheme, FBR received Rs 121 billion in taxes. Of these, an amount of Rs 44 billion pertained to foreign assets, it added.