Islamabad: The Senate Standing Committee on Finance has recommended that the restrictions on non-filers for their car purchases should be relaxed, according to a news report. This has come after a parliamentary panel recommended that the government relaxes restrictions on non-filers’ income tax returns, as it states that non-filers can’t buy these assets effective from fiscal year 2018-2019.
The standing committee has endorsed the government’s proposal to impose new restrictions on purchase of property and vehicles by the non-filers and recommended that these should be allowed to buy or import cars of up to 1,000 cc. The committee has gone ahead by saying that the non-filers should be allowed to purchase residential homes and plots measuring up to 10-marla or its equivalent in square yards.
Representatives of the committee believe that the government has imposed extremely harsh restrictions to expand the tax base. This is why they’ve recommended that the government should enhance the tax-free cash withdrawal limit from the current PKR 50,000 a day to PKR 100,000 a day. The committee has also lent support to the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR)’s proposal to lower the reporting requirements for commercial banks.
On the other hand, increasing the penalty for non-filing of income and wealth statement by resident Pakistanis owning offshore assets has been acceded to by this committee. The FBR has also proposed to treat the 6% withholding tax paid by commercial importers as minimum liability instead of final liability.
