Withholding tax on bank transactions increased to 0.4%
ISLAMABAD (Staff Report) – Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday announced to increase withholding tax on bank transactions from 0.3 percent to 0.4 percent, which will be effective immediately.
Talking to newsmen after a meeting representatives of business community in Islamabad, Dar also announced to extend the date of filing tax returns up to March 15.
On the occaion, he urged businessmen to take advantage of the tax compliance scheme. He said the scheme is aimed at increasing the tax net.
Minister for Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs, Mohammad Ishaq Dar on Monday announced extension of date for Voluntary Tax Compliance Scheme (VTCS) up to March 15, 2016 to give more opportunities and relief to the traders for filing of their returns under the scheme.
Announcement to this effect was made by the minister at a press briefing here after negotiation with traders’ union leaders who requested the government to give them more time to convince the traders to benefit from the scheme.
Adviser to Prime Minister on Revenues Haroon Akhtar Khan, Chairman Federal Board of Revenue, Nisar Muhammad Khan, President All Pakistan Anjman Tajiran, Khawaja Shafique, Chairman Traders Association Naim Mir and Ajmal Baloch were also present on the occasion.
The minister said that the date for filing returns was also being extended for 15 days.
“However, the withholding tax of 0.3 percent for non filers on banking transaction was being raised to 0.4 percent from March 01,” the minister added.
He said after the announcement of the scheme, so far around 2500 tax filers had filed their returns and took benefit from the scheme while Rs 220 million had been collected under the scheme.
Although this figure is not up to the target but hoped that gradually the figures would increase and maximum traders would take benefit from the scheme.
Ishaq Dar said that the government had tried its level best to make reforms in the FBR in order to make it a tax payers friendly organization so that maximum number of tax payers would come under the tax net without any hindrance.
To a question, the minister said that this scheme was approved through parliament as per demand of the opposition parties.
“This scheme was initiated by taking all stakeholders including parliamentarians belonging to different political parties with consensus,” he remarked.
He informed that the government had also collected withholding tax of Rs 13.2 billion in first seven months of current fiscal year.
Ishaq Dar assured the tax payers that their refund claims would be cleared by March 15.
To another question, the minister said that nobody is exempted from the tax audit and all tax payers whose names came in the draw would be served notices irrespective of any political affiliation. “Even if my name appears in the computerized draw for audit, I would be available for my audit,” he added.
Replying to yet another question regarding holding of national census, Dar said that the process of census had been delayed due to the fact that the personnel of armed forces were engaged in Operation Zarb e Azb and as soon as the availability of the required human resource for conducting the national census was cleared, the government would launch it.
Dar said that the Pakistan Airlines Limited (PAL) had been registered as a company with the authorized capital of Rs 100 billion.
He said the government would make it clear within a week that whether this company was going to become a subsidiary of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) or an independent entity.
He said the government had spent only Rs 10,000 on this company as a registration fees while no other expenses had been made.