Senate body passes several recommendations in Finance bill 2018-19

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Wednesday apprised the Senate’s body on Finance that as many as 1, 52000 foreign bank accounts of Pakistani citizens have been unearth in details shared by Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), ARY News reported.

The body is mulling over to either freeze those bank accounts or bring them into the tax net, the officials of the FBR said.

However, the Senate body turned down the recommendation that allows for tax assessment after disclosing of foreign assets by the Pakistanis, in the 2^nd amendment in finance bill of 2018-19, after voting.

Another recommendation of slashing duties on the surgical equipment was passed by the senate body, after a detail discussion.

The committee deferred the matter of relaxing custom duties on household items and other things and sought an opinion of the Commerce ministry in this regard.

Expressing his views in the committee meeting, State Minister for Revenue, Hammad Azhar said duties have been reduced for the household items and shoe industries, to keep them intact in the country, as both the industries are shifting abroad.

The minister said that all taxes imposed on the import of cell phones, have been clubbed in the 2^nd amendment in finance bill-2018-19.

“Tax of rupees 400 will be applicable on import of mobile phone worth rupees 10,000, rupees 4,000 for cell phone with the cost of 28000 rupees, tax of rupees of 6 thousand on rupees 60,000 cell phone will be imposed,” the minister said.

The committee also green-lightened the recommendation of clubbing taxes on import of cell phones.

Chairman FBR Muhammad Jehanzeb informed the members of the committee that, rupees 120 billion will be released for the sales tax refund