NA body recommends enhancing daily cash withdrawal limit for non-filers to Rs75,000

SLAMABAD  –  National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance on Satur­day recommended the govern­ment to enhance the daily cash withdrawal limit for non-filers from Rs50,000 to Rs75,000 and increase the withholding tax from 0.6 percent to 0.8 percent.

The committee also approved a proposal of 0.5pc reduction in the super tax imposed on the corporate sector. Tax exemp­tions on deposits in SCRA ac­counts held for less than six months have been scrapped, while a 2pc withholding tax has been proposed on cash-on-delivery (COD) transactions — a measure aimed at expanding the tax net on online shopping. The committee backed the proposal to impose taxes on e-commerce businesses, formalising a previ­ously less-regulated sector.

To tighten the monitoring of financial activity, the committee approved a proposal enabling the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to access data of individu­als making banking transactions beyond their declared income. FBR Chairman Rashid Mehm­ood Langrial informed the com­mittee that a computerised al­gorithm will identify high-value transactions exceeding certain thresholds. “A red flag will be is­sued for individuals conducting large transactions through cur­rent accounts,” he added.