Prime Minister Imran Khan who won the 2018 general election on the platform of Naya Pakistan and dreams of creating Riyasat-e-Madina has asked tax evaders to invest their illicit wealth in housing projects initiated by him, WION reported.
As per the new rule, the Federal Board of Revenue will look the other way if black money is invested in construction projects like the Pakistan government’s Naya Pakistan Housing Program by December 31.
Zaigham Rizvi, member of Naya Pakistan Housing Program taskforce, in an interview said, “There is all this money with developers who have been doing tax evasion and small scale projects. I support the decision to bring funds from the dark economy into a tangible economy. Construction will generate some sort of tax directly or indirectly if that money is put through the value-added system.”
Pakistan is under lot of economic strain and the arrival of the Wuhan virus has made the matter worse. It is estimated as high as 56% of the nation’s wealth is illegal money and Khan is hoping to jump-start the economy with this plan.
However, in Pakistan, the rich seldom pay any tax and in an embarrassing, if not startling revelation it has been discovered that most of the special assistants of Imran Khan, have dual citizenship and they have not revealed there financial details and assets.
Such voluntary discloser schemes are not new in Pakistan and have been tried before but have not had any success.
The reason attributed to the failure to bring black money back into the economy is due to the very people who make such rules. The biggest tax evaders are the politicians and many happen to be large landowners who never declare their true wealth.