The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Thursday briefed the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance regarding benami accounts and investigations into illegal financial transactions, a private channel reported. During the meeting, the FBR member told the body that new law [of benami accounts and transactions] wasn’t implemented to collect taxes, but they were put in place to stop money laundering. Chairman FBR told the meeting that revenue authority didn’t raise Aleema Khan case. “It was actually taken by the Supreme Court with a Suo motu notice.” He said details of 1,58,000 offshore accounts had been found and notices have been served in this regard. He informed investigation was underway regarding offshore accounts having a capital of $10 million. “We have detected 556 properties of Pakistanis in Dubai.” He added that more than 400 owners of those properties had acquired tax amnesty scheme. Published in Daily Times, March 15th 2019.