Revenue earned in Pak govt's tax amnesty scheme is below expectation: Report

Though some 110,000 people from across Pakistan have declared their assets and deposited Rs 55 billion as tax till Wednesday, the last day of the assets declaration scheme, the revenue earned is below expectation, according to a media report Thursday.

Prime Minister Imran Khan-led government on May 14 announced the asset declaration scheme. It was to end on June 30, but extended at the last minute for another three days till July 3.

Based on the final clearance, the final figure is likely to go up as about 21,000 more people are set to submit their returns, along with the declaration forms, the Dawn reported.

The tax amnesty scheme, announced by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government, saw a surge, mostly from those who were non-filers of the income tax, sources in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) were quoted as saying in the report.

However, the revenue earned from the assets declaration scheme is below expectation, it said.

In the last tax amnesty scheme brought in 2018 by the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government, at least 83,000 people availed of the scheme and over Rs 124 billion was collected.

The major outcomes of the scheme include, maximum number of people from small cities -- like Faisalabad, Sialkot, Gujranwala, Abbottabad -- availed the scheme, mostly those who did not exist on the tax roll.

In the last tax amnesty scheme, about 60 per cent people from Karachi and 30 per cent from Lahore had availed the scheme.

Islamabad had been on third position in the list of those availing the scheme. Most of them had been rich people who had declared their massive assets to whiten them.

"We will be in a position to actually quantify the cash deposits due to the scheme in the next couple of days," a senior tax official was quoted as saying in the report.

During the last 10 days, about 100,000 new tax returns were added to the total numbers. As a result, the number of tax returns reached over two million, the highest ever in the country's history, the report said.

"Over 90,000 non-filers availed the scheme," the official said.

Government has started a crackdown on those who have not declared the assets, which they often hold on the names of others. Such assets are called as Benami and have been declared illegal.

The FBR will now seize the assets of any citizen who has failed to declare them after under the government's assets declaration scheme after the expiry of the declaration scheme.