Law against ‘benami transactions’ to be operationalized by Feb 8: FBR

ISLAMABAD: The Benami law is likely to become operational later this week, allowing the government to confiscate all properties and bank accounts that would not be registered with the name of real owner.

Addressing a press briefing here, Member Inland Revenue Policy, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Hamid Ateeq Server was quoted by state-run wire service APP as saying that this was a very harsh law under which the government would confiscate all properties if they are not registered with the name of real owner.

He informed that the Benami Act was passed in January, 2017, and now after finalizing of its rules and regulations, the law would become operational by February 7 or 8.

He said this law would act hard on those who register their properties, bank accounts, or vehicles on other beneficiaries’ name in order to evade taxes.

Briefing the media about revenue collection, Member IR operations, Seema Shakil said that during the period July-January 2018-19, the FBR collected Rs. 2,060.757 billion against collection of Rs. 1995.277 billion collected during same period of last year showing an increase of around 3 percent.

She said that there was a shortfall in revenue collection mainly due to relief in tax measures while contraction of Federal Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) also negatively impacted the revenue collection.