Daily Times

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has requested the Ministry of Finance of United Arab Emirates (UAE) to provide the information of all those Pakistanis who have sought UAE iqama under Residence by Investment (RBI) Schemes.

The FBR in its letter to UAE’s Ministry of Finance has stated that such delinquent Pakistani tax resident persons had not only siphoned off funds out of Pakistan, parked them in UAE, but also effectively circumvented the OECD-sponsored CRS exchange of bank and financial account information.

The UAE’s Ministry of Finance has not responded to all earlier written requests of the FBR in this regard. The FBR letter further states that the automatic exchange of information framework, in essence, was conceived and implemented to put up a well-coordinated and concerted global fight against organised tax theft and to inject transparency in the international tax system. In the Pakistan-UAE meeting on EOI held in Dubai on October 9-10, 2019, a commitment was made to come up with a detailed formal response. However, not only that no reply whatsoever has been received from the UAE, a few subsequent rejoinders issued by the FBR went unanswered, even unacknowledged. The UAE’s persistent silence over FBR’s efforts to develop a robust framework for sharing of structured information of Pakistani iqama holders has not been productive so far.

The FBR has requested the UAE to provide a well-laid-out roadmap on UAE iqama holders’ information. Alternatively, Pakistan would be constrained to seriously consider rolling out appropriate measures, including termination of Pakistan-UAE avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement at an early date.