MULTAN, June 23rd: Acting President of Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI)Begum Romana Tanvir Sheikh said that Tax Amnesty Scheme 2018 is beneficial for both the government and the business community as it would help promote documented economy besides giving business doing people an opportunity to legalise their undeclared assets. Delivering her speech at an awareness seminar which was jointly arranged by Multan Chamber of Commerce & Industry (MCCI) and Federal Board of Revenue in MCCI. “We have always demanded for broadening the tax net and lowering down the tax rate. We expect that this Tax Amnesty Scheme will go a long way in achieving the desired results. TAS-2018 would help broadening the tax net and would reduce the burden from the existing taxpayers. It is a matter of concern that just around 1.2 million income tax return filers in a country of more than 200 million people that’s why Tax-to-GDP ratio in Pakistan is poor,” MCCI acting president added. Chief Commissioner inland revenue Multan Dr. Khalil Ahmed said that all possible measures are being taken to make amnesty scheme a success. He briefed the participants about the Tax Amnesty Scheme 2018 and other relevant affairs. He said that Tax Amnesty Scheme was receiving encouraging results and its success would help resolving the current account deficit and balance of payment issues.He said under the scheme, the people could benefit by declaring their domestic and foreign assets as they would have to pay only a nominal tax under the scheme. Dr.Khalil said keeping in view the benefits of tax amnesty scheme, the caretaker set up was also fully committed to ensure success of the scheme. He said government as well as public representatives were not eligible to take benefit from the scheme while people involved in different crimes were also not allowed to benefit from it. To a question, the Chief Commissioner said last date of the scheme was June 30 and he did not have any authority to extend last date of the scheme. He further said that there is a good response in Multan region and More than Rs.50 million assets were declared by the people while it was in billions in other major cities .MCCI VP Khawaja Muhammad Farooq said that this golden opportunity must be availed by the business community and they should give legal status to their undeclared assets by paying 2-5 percent tax only. Ahmed Mujtaba briefed the participants about this amnesty scheme-2018 with the help of Mult-media. The seminar was also attended by Muhammad Younas Ghazi, Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah, Mirza Ali Ahmed,Aurang Zeb Alamgir, Anwar Saleem keen,Shabbir Fakharuddin, Faheem Sattar and Abdul Sattar.
