PR
Real estate agents have demanded the government to announce a general amnesty scheme for investors in real estate across the country without further delay to stop investment outflow to UAE and other countries of the world. In a press statement issued here on Wednesday, Muhammad Ahsan Malik, the General Secretary of Real Estate Consultants Association (RECA) DHA Islamabad and Executive Member of Federation of Realtors (FOR) Pakistan said Pakistanis had invested billions of rupees in other countries due to absence of amnesty scheme and irrational taxation polices. He said that the new taxes enforced on the real estate in July 2016 had drastically affected the investment in in the real estate sector and thousands of young people associated with this sector had become jobless. He clarified that the government had recently taken some very positive steps to protect the investment in real estate sector which included the revision of the FBR evaluation rate in January, 2018 which was wrongly imposed in 2016. “It’s a very positive step and we are extremely indebted to Advisor to Prime Minister for Revenue Mr Haroon Akhtar Khan and Federal Minister for Commerce and Textile Industry Mr. Malik Muhammad Parvez for this, but without general amnesty scheme and reduction in taxes, the real estate could not flourish at all,” he added. Ahsan Malik said that they wanted to pay tax but the property tax imposed from July 1 206 had been highly unjustified, excessive and unilateral. The association’s General Secretary further said that this irrational taxation was also hurting the economic situation in Pakistan. He requested that the government should consult the property dealers and real estate consultants before imposing any taxes in the real estate sector.