ISLAMABAD: Pakistan extended a tax amnesty scheme on Sunday till July 31, allowing people to declare their hidden domestic and offshore assets by paying a nominal 2 to 5 percent tax on them.
The scheme was originally launched by the previous government on April 10 and was scheduled to expire on June 30.
“The Federal Cabinet, on the recommendations of the Finance Minister, has approved an extension of the closing date of tax amnesty schemes for declaration of foreign assets and domestic income and assets till July 31, 2018,” Dr. Mohammed Iqbal, member (inland revenue-policy) of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), told Arab News.
A summary was approved on Saturday for promulgation of a presidential ordinance to amend the Foreign Assets (Declaration and Repatriation) Act 2018, and the Voluntary Declaration of Domestic Assets Act to extend the amnesty schemes for offshore and domestic assets.
President Mamnoon Hussain promulgated the ordinance to validate the one-month extension with immediate effect.
He said the extension was made on the request of trade bodies, professional associations and the public since “there has been an overwhelming demand and response which is on the rise.
“The extension was also needed to remove ambiguities through clarifications and explanations required to provide certainty to the general public and to ensure effective implementation of the schemes,” he said.
Iqbal said the scheme had also been extended for a month as those declaring foreign assets faced problems in the payment of tax on foreign assets and repatriation of liquid assets.
“It will help the government in bringing undocumented persons, assets and income into the documented sector,” he said. “Depending on the flows, the scheme has the potential to bring in macroeconomic and fiscal stability in the economy.”
Ex-premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi claimed at the launch of the amnesty scheme in April that it would broaden the tax base from only 1.2 million individuals to 30 million.
The FBR expected to collect around RS120 billion ($32 billion) in tax contributions from those who have used the amnesty scheme. However, by late Saturday night, only RS75 billion could come in the FBR’s kitty.
Pakistanis were allowed to whiten their hidden local and foreign assets at nominal rates between 2 and 5 percent, depending on whether they are declaring domestic or foreign assets and repatriating these possessions to the country or not.
Economists welcome the extension in the amnesty scheme but also urge the authorities to formulate cogent policies to increase the tax net and catch tax evaders to strengthen the country’s economy.
Dr Ashfaque Hasan Khan, senior economist and ex-adviser to the Ministry of Finance, said the scheme had been successful only because the Supreme Court gave it the go-ahead after properly vetting and reviewing its contours.
“The Supreme Court’s approval helped improve confidence of businessmen and the general public in the amnesty scheme and hopefully the FBR will get sufficient revenue through it,” he told Arab News.
Khan said that if Pakistanis declared their foreign assets through the scheme in large numbers, it would also help improve the country's foreign exchange reserves. “For the first time, businessmen and trade bodies have been taking a lot of interest in the amnesty scheme and this shows its success,” he added.
The apex court had taken notice of the amnesty scheme after the then opposition parties had disapproved of it, but later, in June this year, the court approved it after getting it reviewed by economists and tax experts.
Dr. Athar Ahmed, senior economist, termed the tax amnesty scheme a “blessing in disguise” and said the government had no other option but to announce the amnesty to bring more people into the tax net.
“The authorities had to offer incentives to tax evaders because there was no mechanism in place to hold them accountable for their undeclared local and foreign assets,” he told Arab News.
He urged the government to sign agreements with international bodies and other countries to track down undeclared assets of Pakistanis. “Parliament should enact laws to help relevant authorities locate undeclared local and foreign assets of Pakistanis to strengthen the economy,” he suggested.
Pakistan extends tax amnesty scheme for another 30 days
Pakistan extends tax amnesty scheme for another 30 days
- Country expects the plan to broaden the tax base from current 1.2 million individuals to 30 million
- The government extended the scheme on Sunday till July 31, allowing people to declare their hidden domestic and offshore assets by paying a nominal tax on them
Indonesia’s Supreme Court reverses acquittal of former official in slavery case
- A police investigation found 665 people had been held in cells on his property since 2010
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s Supreme Court jailed a former government official accused of human trafficking for four years, reversing a lower court decision to acquit him after people were found in cages in his palm oil plantation.
Condemned internationally and at home, the senior official in the provincial government in North Sumatra, Terbit Rencana Perangin-angin, had been accused of human trafficking, torture, forced labor, and slavery.
Prosecutors launched an appeal after a lower court acquitted him of the charges in July.
Indonesia’s Supreme Court said he would serve four years in jail, without specifying reasons, in a ruling dated Nov. 15 and seen on the court’s website on Tuesday.
The Supreme Court and prosecutors did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Reuters has sought comment from Terbit’s lawyer.
The macabre case came to light in 2022, when a police corruption investigation into Terbit found people detained in cages on his property, drawing condemnation from rights groups.
A police investigation found 665 people had been held in cells on his property since 2010, court documents showed.
Terbit, who was jailed for nine years for corruption in 2022, had previously claimed the detained individuals were participating in a drug rehabilitation program.
Prosecutors said they had been tortured and forced to work on his plantation. Six had died in captivity, Indonesia’s rights body found.
Four Pakistan security forces killed as ex-PM Khan supporters flood capital
ISLAMABAD: Pakistani protesters demanding the release of ex-prime minister Imran Khan on Tuesday killed four members of the nation’s security forces, the government said, as the crowds defied police and closed in on the capital’s center.
More than ten thousand protesters armed with sticks and slingshots took on police in central Islamabad on Tuesday afternoon, AFP journalists saw, less than three kilometers (two miles) from the government enclave they aim to occupy.
Khan was barred from standing in February elections that were marred by allegations of rigging, sidelined by dozens of legal cases that he claims were confected to prevent his comeback.
But his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party has defied a government crackdown with regular rallies. Tuesday’s is the largest in the capital since Khan was jailed in August 2023.
Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi said “miscreants” involved in the march had killed four members of the paramilitary Rangers force on a city highway leading toward the government sector.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the men had been “run over by a vehicle.”
“These disruptive elements do not seek revolution but bloodshed,” he said in a statement. “This is not a peaceful protest, it is extremism.”
The government said Monday that one police officer had also been killed and nine more were critically wounded by demonstrators who set out toward Islamabad on Sunday.
The capital has been locked down since late Saturday, with mobile Internet sporadically cut and more than 20,000 police flooding the streets, many armed with riot shields and batons.
The government has accused protesters of attempting to derail a state visit by Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who arrived for a three-day visit on Monday.
Last week, the Islamabad city administration announced a two-month ban on public gatherings.
But PTI convoys traveled from their power base in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the most populous province of Punjab, hauling aside roadblocks of stacked shipping containers.
“We are deeply frustrated with the government, they do not know how to function,” 56-year-old protester Kalat Khan told AFP on Monday. “The treatment we are receiving is unjust and cruel.”
The government cited “security concerns” for the mobile Internet outages, while Islamabad’s schools and universities were also ordered shut on Monday and Tuesday.
“Those who will come here will be arrested,” Interior Minister Naqvi told reporters late Monday at D-Chowk, the public square outside Islamabad’s government buildings that PTI aims to occupy.
PTI’s chief demand is the release of Khan, the 72-year-old charismatic former cricket star who served as premier from 2018 to 2022 and is the lodestar of their party.
They are also protesting alleged tampering in the February polls and a recent government-backed constitutional amendment giving it more power over the courts, where Khan is tangled in dozens of cases.
Sharif’s government has come under increasing criticism for deploying heavy-handed measures to quash PTI’s protests.
“It speaks of a siege mentality on the part of the government and establishment — a state in which they see themselves in constant danger and fearful all the time of being overwhelmed by opponents,” read one opinion piece in the English-language Dawn newspaper published Monday.
“This urges them to take strong-arm measures, not occasionally but incessantly.”
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said “blocking access to the capital, with motorway and highway closures across Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, has effectively penalized ordinary citizens.”
The US State Department appealed for protesters to refrain from violence, while also urging authorities to “respect human rights and fundamental freedoms and to ensure respect for Pakistan’s laws and constitution as they work to maintain law and order.”
Khan was ousted by a no-confidence vote after falling out with the kingmaking military establishment, which analysts say engineers the rise and fall of Pakistan’s politicians.
But as opposition leader, he led an unprecedented campaign of defiance, with PTI street protests boiling over into unrest that the government cited as the reason for its crackdown.
PTI won more seats than any other party in this year’s election but a coalition of parties considered more pliable to military influence shut them out of power.
Russia’s Medvedev warns West over discussing nuclear weapons for Ukraine
MOSCOW: Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that if the West supplied nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow could consider such a transfer to be tantamount to an attack on Russia, providing grounds for a nuclear response.
The New York Times reported last week that some unidentified Western officials had suggested that US President Joe Biden could give Ukraine nuclear weapons, though there were fears such a step would have serious implications.
“American politicians and journalists are seriously discussing the consequences of the transfer of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, said on Telegram.
Medvedev said that even the threat of such a transfer of nuclear weapons could be considered as preparation for a nuclear war against Russia.
“The actual transfer of such weapons can be equated to the fait accompli of an attack on our country,” under Russia’s newly updated nuclear doctrine, he said.
China sends naval, air forces to shadow US plane over Taiwan Strait
- The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait
BEIJING: China’s military said on Tuesday it deployed naval and air forces to monitor and warn a US Navy patrol aircraft that flew through the sensitive Taiwan Strait, denouncing the United States for trying to “mislead” the international community.
Around once a month, US military ships or aircraft pass through or above the waterway that separates democratically governed Taiwan from China — missions that always anger Beijing.
China claims sovereignty over Taiwan and says it has jurisdiction over the strait. Taiwan and the United States dispute that, saying the strait is an international waterway.
The US Navy’s 7th fleet said a P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft had flown through the strait “in international airspace,” adding that the flight demonstrated the United States’ commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific.
“By operating within the Taiwan Strait in accordance with international law, the United States upholds the navigational rights and freedoms of all nations,” it said in a statement.
China’s military criticized the flight as “public hype,” adding that it monitored the US aircraft throughout its transit and “effectively” responded to the situation.
“The relevant remarks by the US distort legal principles, confuse public opinion and mislead international perceptions,” the military’s Eastern Theatre Command said in a statement.
“We urge the US side to stop distorting and hyping up and jointly safeguard regional peace and stability.”
In April, China’s military said it sent fighter jets to monitor and warn a US Navy Poseidon in the Taiwan Strait, a mission that took place just hours after a call between the Chinese and US defense chiefs. (Reporting by Beijing Newsroom; Additional reporting and writing by Ben Blanchard in Taipei; Editing by Edwina Gibbs)
Ukraine says Russia launched ‘record’ 188 drones overnight
KYIV: Russia staged a record number of drone attacks overnight over Ukraine, damaging buildings and “critical infrastructure” in several regions, the air force said Tuesday.
“During the night attack, the enemy launched a record number of Shahed strike unmanned aerial vehicles and unidentified drones,” the air force said, referring to Iranian-designed drones and putting the figure at 188.
