9th meeting of the Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs of the National Assembly was held today i.e 15th April, 2019, in Committee Room No. 7, Parliament House, Islamabad, under the chairmanship of Mr. Faiz Ullah, MNA.

2.         Honorable Minister for Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs informed the Committee about the important negotiations with IMF, he said that IMF has principally agreed to provide a financial package to Pakistan. He further informed that staff mission from IMF will shortly visit Pakistan for completing the remaining formalities. Mr. Muhammad Hammad Azhar, Minister of State for Revenue briefed the Committee about the salient features of the amnesty scheme proposed by the government.    

3.         The Committee deferred agenda pertaining to Microfinance Institutions (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (moved by Ms. Sajida Begum, MNA) owing to the absence of Honorable Mover.

4.         The Committee discussed the issues of real estate sector pertaining to Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Valuation Table, DC Valuation and Upper Cap imposed by the FBR. The Committee was informed by the Member (IR-Policy) FBR regarding upper cap imposed by the FRR, he said that the provision of section 236W of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 imposes 3% tax on differential value of immovable property being the difference of FBR value and DC value. He added that provision was only applicable if the buyer registers the property at DC value but pays advance income tax u/s 236K at FBR value which was a value higher than DC value. He told the Committee that tax was meant to cater to agitation of persons against higher FBR values compared to DC values and insisted that the DC values were the actual values of the properties and that they don’t have taxed money over and above the DC values.

5.         The senior Members Board of Revenue from Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa informed the Committee that a meeting was held under the chairmanship of Minister for Finance & Revenue and it was decided that provincial governments will bring their property rates equal to the FBR valuation, which may be closer to the actual value of the immovable property.  The Committee recommended that FBR will coordinate with provincial revenue departments for presenting a maintainable report to the Committee in this regard.  

6.         The Committee discussed the budgetary proposals received from Pakistan Tyre Importers & Dealers Association. The representative of FBR informed the Committee that FBR has already reduced regulatory duty on the import of tyres from 35 to 25 percent in the supplementary budget and the said matter was under consideration for further reducing regulatory duty. The Committee recommended to FBR that a meeting may be arranged tomorrow with stakeholders to resolve the issue.   

7.         The meeting was attended by MNAs Mr. Raza Nasrullah, Mr. Jamil Ahmed Khan, Mr. Faheem Khan, Ms. Nusrat Wahid, Dr. Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, Mr. Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh, Mr. Ali Pervaiz, Dr. Aisha Ghaus Pasha, Dr. Nafisa Shah and Mr. Abdul Wasay, besides the senior officers of FBR, SBP, Ministry of Law, provincial revenue departments and different stakeholders.