Saturday, 3 November, 2012 ISLAMABAD APP The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is considering to launch a new scheme for affluent non-filers of tax and other tax evaders providing them an opportunity to pay their due taxes and bring them under the tax net regime and enhance revenues for the prosperity of the country. “We are considering to launch a new scheme called “Tax registration inputs with enforcement initiative” in order to bring about 4 million affluent people who were not filing their tax returns and did not pay tax to the government”, Asrar Raouf Senior Member Inland Revenue and Spokesman of FBR told journalists at an informal chat here at the FBR House on Friday. Senior members of the FBR were also present on the occasion. “This is not an amnesty scheme for the non tax payers only we are giving them an opportunity to come under the tax net regime by filing their returns and pay their due taxes to the government for the prosperity of the country”, Raouf said. He warned that any non-filer and evader of the tax who did not take benefit from the opportunity and continue to evade taxes, their Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) would be cancelled and they would not be able to do any business or travel abroad. In this regard the new scheme would be placed before the Parliament for ap- proval. Asrar Raouf expressed the hope that after introducing this new scheme FBR would be able to collect an additional amount of Rs.96 billion for the country. He further informed the journalists that tax collection ratio has been in- creased by 11 percent during the four months of the current financial year and realized Rs.559 billion. He added that in the month of Octo- ber of the current financial year Rs.140 billion have been collected against the collection of Rs.126 billion in the same period. He added that due to strikes in Karachi a loss of Rs.5 billion to 6 billion is incurred to national kitty. He added that so far 1.5 million tax- payers have filed their tax returns while the number should be more than 5 mil- lion. The Senior Member Inland Revenue said that the scheme of Registration in- puts with enforcement initiatives”is not a new idea as this scheme has been imple- mented in the many countries like USA, Spain, Australia and Greek etc and bene- fitted a lot from the scheme. Replying to a question, he clarified that by introducing this scheme govern- ment is not whitening the black money but providing the businessmen and afflu- ent people who had not been filing their returns for the past 65 years and did not pay taxes to the government. Through this scheme these people would be brought under the tax regime and enhance the revenues for the pros- perity of the country. He also stressed the need for elimi- nating Hundi system of transferring money which is causing losses to revenue collection of the country. “We have a record of 3.8 to 4 million rich people who are possessing assets, paying huge school/university fees for their children, travelling abroad many time, having dual accounts and did not pay taxes to the government for the past 65 years and we will give them an oppor- tunity to pay their due taxes to avoid any further legal action and come under the tax regime”, he remarked. He added that FBR is subordinate or- ganization of the Ministry of Finance and without approval of the Ministry no deci- sion is taken by the FBR. Asrar Raouf further said that tax poli- cies are home grown and not dictated by anyone and International Monetary Fund is also willing to impose and recover taxes from the affluent people who were not paying their due taxes. He also dispelled the impression that government would not be able to present its budget without financial support of the fund. Replying to another question, he said that action has been started against ille- gal and non custom paid vehicles and these are being impounded on daily basis. He expressed that hope that an addi- tional amount of Rs. 30 billion would be collected through action against illegal vehicles. He added that there is no scheme under consideration for the registration of illegal vehicles. FBR hunts down non-taxPaying Bigwigs Plans to launch new scheme for affluent non-filers of tax: spokesman KARACHI ISMAIL DILAWAR T HE equity market on Fri- day kept its northward jour- ney to peak beyond the historic high of 16,000 points, thanks to declining inflation that deepened the investors’ hope for further monetary easing by the central bank in its next monetary policy decision due early next month. Last trading session of the week saw the KSE 100-share index witnessing what the market observers said the highest ever close amid other positives like higher trades and market capitalization. “KSE 100 witnessed highest ever close amid higher trades after CPI inflation for October 2012 stood at 7.66pc raising ex- pectations for rate-cut by (the) SBP in pol- icy announcement,” viewed Ahsan Mehanti, a senior stocks market analyst. According to unofficial figures, the Consumer Price Index inflation for the month of October was recorded as low as 1.13 percent at 7.66 percent compared to 8.79 percent noted in the preceding month of September. With market observers attributing this decrease to declining food prices, the average inflation for the first four months of FY13 stood at 8.8 percent compared to 11.3 percent of the corresponding months in FY12. “We believe the major reason be- hind the decline is fall in food head,” opined Topline analyst Nauman Khan. This southward movement of the backbreaking price hike puts more weight behind the analysts’ view that the central bank in its next monetary policy statement in early December is like to slash the dis- count rate at least by 50 and at maximum by 100 basis points.Pinning hope in such forecasts the investors at Karachi stocks market made Friday a historic day in the history of country’s equity market where the benchmark KSE 100 index closed at all time high of 16,101.55 points, gaining 139.18 points over Thursday which saw the index hitting a record 15,962.37 points. The intraday high and low, respectively, stood at 16,107.38 and 15,962.37 points. On Thursday, the index was recorded at record intraday high of 16,005 points. Friday saw the trading turnover recorded at the ready counter higher at 191.494 million shares. This was against 189.190 million shares of the previous trad- ing session. Trading value also remained in the green zone increasing to Rs 5.18 billion from Rs 4.72 billion a day earlier. The market capitalization was seen swelling beyond Rs 4 trillion as against Thursday’s Rs 3.98 trillion. The free-float KSE-30 index also gained 133 points to close at 13,209.25 points against the pre- vious 13,076.04 points. Fauji Cement appeared as a volume leader by getting its 49.093 million stakes traded at a price opening from Rs 6.44 and closing at Rs 6.94. Of the total 351 scrips traded, 182 companies could end up in positive range, 145 in negative and 24 remained unchanged. The future con- tracts sold were recorded at 10.80 million against Thursday’s 9.51 million. Besides the investors’ hope for an- other discount rate-cut, higher global stocks and commodities and renewed foreign interest in oil stocks on strong valuations played a catalyst role in Fri- day’s bullish sentiments, said Mehanti, who serves as a director at Arif Habib Se- curities. This, the analyst said, was de- spite the investors’ concern for negatives like falling rupee-dollar parity ahead of repayments of the IMF loans due this month and higher import bills, security issues in the city and political crises in Balochistan province. “Primary reason for such improved performance from eq- uities has been cut in the policy rate by the central bank in first week of Oct-12,” commented Mazhar A. Sabir, an analyst at InvestCap Research. Monetary policy easing to go on as inflation dips to 7.6% KARACHI STAFF REPORT Expectations for another rate-cut by the central bank get more weightage as the backbreaking inflation is recorded to have gone down below 8 percent during the month of October. According to unofficial estimates, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) further slid to 7.66 percent compared to 8.79 percent noted in September. A monthly account of the price hike shows that inflation stood at 0.4 percent as against 0.8 per- cent in the previous month. On average, the in- flation in 4MFY13 arrived at 8.8 percent compared to 11.3 percent in the same period of last year. “We believe the major reason behind the decline is fall in food head,” said Nauman Khan, a researcher at Topline Research. However, he said, he was expecting a higher month-on-month number for the HRI head. In anticipation of lower CPI number, the bull- run in the federal government’s treasury bills and Pakistan Investment Bonds continue as yields hit five-year low on Friday in anticipation that the central bank would reduce the discount rate in its meeting due early next month. The benchmark 10-year Pak Rupee bond on Fri- day traded as low as 10.98 percent, a level not seen in last five years. Since July 2011, when the State Bank started the process of monetary eas- ing, the yield on benchmark 10-year PIBs has shrunk by over 300 basis points. The rally in short-term treasury papers is also gaining momentum as bankers and investors are aggressively locking their investment at higher rates. The yield for one-year T-bills de- clined drastically to 9.1 percent, the lowest level since July 2007. The 6-months and 3-months T-bills were, respec- tively, traded at 9.07 percent and 9.09 percent, lowest since August 2007. From last monetary policy the T-bill yield has decreased in the range of 70 to 75 basis points, while are down 430 to 480 basis points from July 2011. According to Khan, the soft inflation number is likely to prompt the central bank to opt for another rate- cut by 50 to 100 basis points in December. KSE’s on a record-breaking spree Share market clinches another historic high LAHORE APP SAARC Chamber of Commerce and In- dustry (SCCI), President Vikramjit Singh Sahnay Friday hailed the deci- sion of the Pak cabinet for ratifying the Pakistan-India visa regime agreement. In a message sent to VP SAARC CCI,Pak chapter Iftikahr Ali Malik, the SCCI chief said that it was a bold and historic decision by Pakistan to simplify the cumbersome procedure for the grant of visa with a view to promote people to people contact. He said that the epoch making de- cision would greatly help enhance trade and boost business activities between the two countries.He said that multiple entry on one year visa with exemption from police report and increase in the number of cities for visa holders would ensure smooth and frequent exchange of traders delegations of private sec- tors. Vikramjit said that the visa regime agreement singed by the former Indian External Affairs Minister SM Krishna and Pak Interior Minister Rehman Malik would prove a milestone in the economic history of the either country for further cementing Pak-India rela- tions besides strengthening trade in ad- dition to taking full benefits of technical expertise in different fields. He said that free movement of the business community would not only help improve the business environment but also positively affect the entire re- gion of South Asia. The SCCI Chief said that Pakistan and India,with the support of their pri- vate sector, have taken historic steps to normalize bilateral trade relations. South Asia is the fastest growing region in the world but also one of the least in- tegrated while the region’s trade with the rest of the world is growing rapidly, intra-regional trade is merely 5 per cent of its total trade, he added. Vikramjit said that despite being natural trade and investment partners, the volume of trade between Pakistan and India, the two largest economies of the region, had been extremely low. He said that for instance, total trade be- tween Brazil and Argentina amounted to US$33 billion in 2010, almost 15 times more than the current Pak-India trade of little over US$2 billion. He said that it was worth mentioning that Ar- gentina and Brazil too had a turbulent past of war and fierce rivalry. He said that bilateral trade between Pakistan and India a couple of years ago stood at an estimated US$1.83 bil- lion. India accounts for nearly 1.2 per cent of Pakistan’s global exports, while Pakistan accounts for less than 0.9 per- cent of India’s global exports, he added. Iftikhar Ali Malik said that the pri- vate sectors of either country had to play a key role in the prevailing situation for viable and sustainable better trade rela- tions for the welfare of people of the re- gion. He said opening of proper trade within the ambit of law between the two countries would help check billions of dollars of irregular and illegal trade (smuggling) through land and sea routes. Pakistan’s decision to ratify visa regime hailed 18-Business Pages- 03 November_Layout 1 11/3/2012 4:41 AM Page 1