KARACHI: The Nawaz government has come hard on smuggling, money laundering and revenue leakage at Customs stage, which has resulted in elimination of mis-declaration, under-invoicing while smuggling has also been checked to a considerable extent.
In a recent incident, the Directorate General of Intelligence & Investigation (I&I) of Inland Revenue (IRS) carried out an exercise and identified incident of suspected money laundering in the garb of investment abroad.
I&I IRS Director General Haroon Tareen had this information that some unscrupulous elements were attempting to move their black money.
On his directives, Director Shams-ul-Hadi, Additional Director Asim Ahmed, Deputy Director Asif Abro, Auditor Saeed Khan appeared at an exhibition organized by M/s Ammar Developers of Dubai at a local 5-star hotel to attract investment for their project in Dubai.
The I&I team observed the investors and analyzed the records with M/s Ammar Developers pertaining to the investments made by local investors under Section 175 and 176 of Income Tax Ordinance. The minimum investment threshold is DHS 1.5 million.
After analyzing the records, the IRS team identified five investors who had made heavy investments, which is suspected to be a bid to transfer black money. M/s Ammar Developers after this incident ended their exhibition.
The Intelligence Wing of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has launched a probe in money laundering cases of suspected persons, official sources said.
Sources at the Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation (DG I&I) Inland Revenue, FBR, Karachi, said that the directorate had detected cases where legitimate taxes had been evaded on income and the same was being laundered in the garb of investment into foreign real estate projects.
It may be mentioned here that the government and the Ministry of Finance have been making all efforts to streamline the affairs at Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). Competent and reputed officers have been posted on key positions in Inland Revenue as well as Customs.
Revenue leakage at Customs stage has been plugged to a considerable stage through checking mis-declaration, under-invoicing etc as well as smuggling particularly smuggling of diesel from Iran, which has resulted in significant increase in legitimate revenue collection. Efforts are also being made against tax evasion and money laundering.