Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar on Wednesday announced that the federal cabinet had decided to keep the prices of five petroleum products unchanged for the month of September in order to provide relief to the people.

He was briefing a crowded press conference on decisions of the federal cabinet at the Prime Minister’s Office. He was flanked by Information Minister Senator Pervaiz Rashid and Information Secretary Saba Mohsin Raza.

The finance minister said Pakistan would sign the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on September 14, as the federal cabinet formally approved this on Wednesday. He termed the decision a historic one, and said he would leave for Paris on September 13 for signing the agreement with the OECD, which has the representation of 100 countries.

“The OECD has invited Pakistan to become its member, as we fulfil its requirements,” he said.

He said the agreement would be implemented by the end of 2017 and be fully activated in 2018-19.

He said the credit of singing this important agreement went to the present government, as no government in the past seventy years had bothered to think about it.

He said that after signing the treaty, Pakistan would have access to automatic information about tax data.

He said the cabinet had also given approval to signing of avoidance of double taxation treaty with Switzerland.

The process was initiated in 2014 and in this regard a two-member Pakistani delegation held successful negotiations with Swiss authorities on June 25-27, 2016, he added.

According to the Swiss law, this agreement would be approved by their parliaments and then be signed by the two countries, he said.

Ishaq Dar said the federal cabinet also ratified PM’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) programme in order to provide basic facilities, including clean drinking water, sanitation, and electricity supply, to the people.

He said the cabinet also approved Tax Laws Amendment Ordinance 2016 and determination of sales tax on petroleum products. The law would be tabled on September 2 in the National Assembly and in the Senate on September 5. He said there were problems regarding input adjustment tax between the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and the provinces, adding that this law would provide relief to the provinces. He said Sindh and Punjab had addressed their issues with the FBR. “Sindh has also signed an agreement regarding adjustment of input tax with the FBR,” he added. The ordinance would also cover Term Finance Certificate (TFC) and sukuk for promotion of Islamic banking and finance in the country.

Regarding property valuation, he said this would help increase revenues by 8 percent to 10 percent, and fetch an amount of Rs 80 billion to Rs 90 billion, he added.