ISLAMABAD: Despite huge protest and walk-out threats, the National Assembly’s standing committee on finance has decided to approve the bill of amnesty scheme for traders with aim to enhance revenue collection.
Yesterday, the Opposition parties tried to block ‘The Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2016’, as what they say the government trying to pass the bill in haste. The major parties, including PPP, PTI and MQM expressed their reservations over the bill. Committee members Dr Nafisa Shah and Abdul Rashid Godil threatened to stage walkout from the meeting if government tried to approve the bill by bulldozing the opposition parties. The committee said that a timeline should be mentioned for the scheme and a clause for verification of progress of scheme should be included.
However, committee chairman Qaiser Ahmed Sheikh said, “This is not an ideal scheme but we should pass it to generate additional revenue and to benefit the traders.” Later, the committee decided to approve the bill today (Tuesday).