LAHORE: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan is set to move court against Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi’s recent tax amnesty scheme, even though the PTI chief himself benefited from such an amnesty scheme back in the year 2000.
Imran seems to be counting himself among the same ranks as Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) supreme leader Nawaz Sharif and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari for once as he has come out swinging against the prime minister’s amnesty scheme, saying that “Nawaz Sharif and family, Zardari and his family and Ishaq Dar and his family will all benefit from this scheme.”
And while Nawaz, Zardari or Dar and their families gaining anything from the current amnesty scheme is hypothetical for now, Imran Khan did indeed benefit from the 2000 tax amnesty scheme that had been initiated by then military dictator General (r) Pervez Musharraf. Back then, he used the scheme to declare the ownership of a flat in London that he had previously hidden from his official tax record.
According to details, the PTI chairman announced on Friday that his party would take on the PM’s amnesty scheme, calling it a “brazen attempt by Abbasi to save criminals”. Questioning why the government would do something so shortly before the end of its tenure, Imran said that the move was “a slap in the face of honest taxpayers”.
However, Miftah Ismail, the federal adviser on finance, revenue, and economic affairs, expressed his reservations over Imran’s comments the very next day, pointing out that it was strange for someone who had benefitted from such a scheme in the past would now think it was a slap in the face of honest taxpayers.
“It is surprising to see Imran Khan, who himself has benefitted through this amnesty scheme in the past, decrying it now,” Ismail said during an interview on a private television channel.
It is interesting to note that the scheme was not just used by Imran back in 2000, but was also a key argument in his defence during the trial of the Hanif Abbasi’s petition seeking Imran’s disqualification as a legislator.
In a statement submitted to the Supreme Court, the PTI chairman had tried to clarify the absence of a London flat he owned by saying it had been declared through the tax amnesty scheme of 2000. It later appeared on his election nomination form of 2002.
Back then, Imran’s counsel Naeem Bokhari told the court that to his client’s knowledge, foreign income was non-taxable in Pakistan. He then clarified that Imran had declared the said property via a tax amnesty scheme, which meant that it did not need to be declared in yearly tax returns, in accordance with the time’s tax laws.