To meet a condition of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Thursday hurriedly notified “Sharing of Declaration of Assets of Civil Servants Rules, 2023” for sharing of information between the FBR and the banks on the assets of civil servants in BS 17 -22.
The FBR on Thursday issued S.R.O. 80(l)12023 to issue the final rules. The same has been previously published vide Notification No. S.R.O.76(I)12023 dated January 26, 2023, as required by sub-section (3) of section 237 of the Income Tax Ordinance. After a period of five days, the rules have been notified.
This is one of the conditions of the IMF program which has been met by issuing the “Sharing of Declaration of Assets of Civil Servants Rules, 2023”.
According to S.R.O. 80(I)/2023 issued by the FBR, the rules shall apply to sharing of information with banks. These rules shall apply for the limited purpose of sharing of information in respect of civil servants in BS 17- 22.
The FBR shall share a simplified or abridged version of the declaration, based on the fields agreed with the State Bank, made by a civil servant in his electronic declaration filed with FBR.
The bank shall use a pre-notified, secured, and single authorized email address and the email account shall be under the control and responsibility of the head of compliance of the bank in terms of its authorization, use, and security of data being shared.
The authorized email account shall be used for request or receipt of simplified declarations as envisaged under sub-rule (3) of rule
The bank shall communicate to the FBR the credentials of a maximum of four Focal Persons (officials) authorized to communicate with FBR through the authorized email. The following information shall be furnished by the bank in respect of focal persons.
The bank shall promptly communicate any change of Focal Persons’ credentials above and shall not allow using the secured email until the credentials have been communicated to the FBR.
The FBR shall provide simplified or abridged information, within five working days through the authorized email, or may refuse in case information is not available or cannot be provided due to any reason. In case of dispute, the decision of FBR shall prevail being a custodian of information.
The bank shall provide bi-annual feedback on the use of information received by the bank as well as on the outcome of CDD in terms of the success of new accounts opened and how the information helped the bank in establishing its client relationship.
Case-wise feedback is to be provided by the 31st of July and 31st of January of every year of the preceding six months’ information requests made by the bank. The tax regulator shall have a dedicated banks’ CDD desk assigned to an authorized officer supported by designated officials to deal with the information requests from the banks, FBR added.
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