Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will convene a meeting of all stakeholders next Monday to know their point of view on the evaluation of tax on the transfer of immoveable property.

The parliament during the discussion on the federal budget had approved the proposal to levy an advance income tax at the rate of Rs 210 on one square feet on the transfer of commercial property and Rs 15 to Rs 75 per square feet on residential property in the budget 2106-17.

Sources said that the government could not resist the pressure of the property mafia and it called a meeting to mull over the proposed amendment during the first month of the financial year.

Finance Minster Ishaq Dar during a high level meeting instructed the FBR to consult with all the stakeholders on the issue.

Sources told this reporter that for the first time in the history of the country the federal government had devised a plan to collect tax on the transfer of property as the tax evasion of billion of rupees had been carried out in the property sector and it was extremely necessary to bring it into the tax net.

Sources added that if the FBR got even 10 per cent of the property tax ,it would help the board to achieve the annual target.

After the announcement of the budget, the senate’s standing committee on finance fully supported the proposal after which it made it a part and parcel of the Finance Act 2016.

It is pertinent to mention here that after the passage of the 18th Amendment, the tax on property was transferred to the provinces and now after the new proposal, all the provincial governments would resist by saying that it would be an interference in the provincial matters as the tax on property transfer was the main source of income for the provinces.