- If the price of a benami property is less than Rs2 million, the amount of reward will be 5pc of the price of the property
ISLAMABAD: The federal government has decided to offer an attractive reward to those who will disclose benami properties.
The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Monday issued an SRO with regard to Benami Transactions (Prohibition) Act 2017. Documents stated that the FBR will give a handsome reward to people disclosing benami properties.
If the price of a benami property is less than Rs2 million, the amount of reward will be 5pc of the price of the property. Similarly, for property that is worth over Rs2 million and less than Rs5 million, the amount of reward would be Rs0.1 million plus 4pc of the price of the property.
Moreover, if the price of a benami property is over Rs5 million, then the amount of reward would be Rs0.22 million plus 3pc of the price of the property.
The documents stated that the amount of reward shall be sanctioned after confiscation of the benami property under section 25.
As per details, the federal government have finalised the required rules in this regard, including short title and commencement, definitions, jurisdiction of administrator, initiating officer and approving authority, determination of price in certain cases, appointment of chairperson and members of adjudicating authority, terms and conditions of service of the chairperson and members of the adjudicating authority, provision attachment, confiscation of property, receipt of confiscated property, management of confiscated property, disposal of confiscated property, appeals to the federal appellate tribunal, terms and conditions of services of the chairperson and members of federal appellate tribunal, removal of chairperson and members from office in certain circumstances, staff of federal appellate tribunal and reward of whistleblowers.
Benami literally means ‘without a name’ and is an arrangement where a property is held and used by one person on behalf of another person who paid for it or a transaction that is made for a piece of property under a fictitious name. It can also mean when the purported owner of a property is unaware of it or denies ownership.
One FBR official said there are a number of people in the tax net who are also involved in benami transactions and own benami properties. if any person unveils a benami property, he would get the reward and his name would be kept confidential.
