Amnesty Scheme Deadline May Be Extended. PM Imran Hints At.

On Thursday, Premier Imran Khan pointed to an expansion to the scheme for the Asset Declaration to prevent the problem may cause by the date of 30 June.

The Prime Minister commented on the PTV News telethon through a video link while communicating with the business community members.

Tycoon Aqeel Karim Dedhi gave his suggestions to premier whether he would ponder an extension in the deadline.

"I think the number of people interested in the scheme could be much larger if there was some clarification on what the purpose of this is, whether people have to deposit cash by June 30, whether this deadline can be extended by a couple of months. For instance, if you could register first and make the 4 per cent penalty payment, but deposit cash in the bank later?"

President Khan observed that while it appeared to be Pakistani trait to leave things until the last minute, it was

"considering it, because there's a lot of pressure, and lots of people are saying that there is too little time left to register".

PM said he was "discussing with Shabbar Zaidi FBR chairman and PM advisor of Finance Abdul Hafeez Shaikh what process we can adopt that somehow makes it easier for people, so they can register and then after June 30, take advantage of. In the next 48 hours, we will bring a programmer,"

Dedhi touched also on the problem of tax machinery issues, which was totally right by the Prime Minister.

"If I'm the head of the government, I can appoint my man as the FBR chairman and get away with tax theft,"

the prime minister said, explaining how corruption spreads through the tax machinery.

"If I do it, then my ministers will also do it, so will the opposition. When the ruling elite start evading taxes, it travels right to the lowest tier,"

PM remarked.

"We have to reform FBR, and I have taken responsibility for this," he asserted.

"It's become an issue of survival of the country now. If we don't have tax revenue, we don't have money to run the country,"

He explained.

He continued to claim that he would also sit with specialists to develop a system promising refunds to exporters.

Mentioning previous government, he remarked, "They have gotten us stuck in a debt trap. We will get out of it through wealth creation. We need to give the business community an opportunity to make money. That will cause our economy to start moving, and our people will have more jobs, factories will start being set up, it will lead to wealth generation and increase tax revenue, and we will also be able to return our loans," the prime minister said.

"After the 60s, our government will be the first business-friendly government which promotes the industry, and that will try fully to create opportunities for investment," he said.

The biggest component of the reforms, the prime minister said, was to introduce e-governance and introduce technology into the process in order to streamline it

"so that taxpayers don't need to interact in-person, they can do everything online".

"I guarantee you that we will be introducing tax reforms."

"People used to be scared about filing taxes ─ and rightly so, because there was corruption in our institutions," he said.

By mentioning the efforts being made by the government, he said

"I will be overlooking because I need to gather Rs5.5 billion from the country and I won't be able to do it unless people pay taxes. In this budget, we are trying our hardest to uplift industry, the business community and exports, while also trying to end poverty."

"The debts they had taken before, we have to spend half our tax revenue just on interest payments on that,"

He said,

"You cannot run a country on the remaining money, that's why I'm taking these steps."

"I guarantee them today, that if they become a part of the Asset Declaration Scheme and come into the tax net and become a filer ─ being a non-filer is illegal ─ no government institution will bother them."