Pakistan's Tax Officials Enlightened On Tax Treatment Of Islamic Financial Instruments

by Mary Swire, Tax-News.com, Hong Kong

18 August 2008

Pakistan's Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has this week invited two well known scholars of international repute - Prof. Mufti Munib-ur-Rahman and Mr Mujeeb Baig - into the FBR House in Islamabad to enlighten senior tax officials of the Direct Taxes Wing on the "Tax Treatment of Islamic Financial Instruments".

Mr Mumtaz Ahmad, Member (Legal), FBR inaugurated the session while Mr. Irfan Nadeem, Member (Direct Taxes) welcomed the guest speakers.

Mrs Farida Amjad, Chief (International Taxes) introduced the guest speakers to the participants.

The conference comes at a time when the world is beginning to recognize in full the significance of Islamic Finance which has previously been deliberated in 2nd and 3rd Session of UN Committee of Experts for International Cooperation in Tax Matters in their annual meeting held at Geneva.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has also introduced it as an agenda item in its meeting scheduled to be held in October 2008 in Tokyo, additionally, it will also be discussed in the 5th ATAIC Technical Conference.

The guest speakers made a presentation on Islamic Financial Instruments and enlightened the audience on the basic concept of the riba free instrument.

The session was followed by questions/answers, which lasted for one hour and certain future steps to be taken in this regard as to the tax treatment of the Islamic financial Instrument were noted down by the Income Tax Policy Section for examination and necessary action at the appropriate time.

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