A senior team of FBR led by Mr. Asrar Raouf, Honorable Member Tax Policy, Federal Board of Revenue, met with representatives of the Karachi Stock Exchange to address issues related to capital gains tax. A consensus was reached on achieving tax payer facilitation to ensure widening of the tax net. Confidence building measures to achieve this include: 1. The committee considered various proposals to avoid hard-ship to tax-payers. A sub-committee comprising members from FBR, and The Karachi Stock Exchange was constituted to consider the same. 2. FBR will establish a separate cell for facilitation of foreign investors at LTU and RTO. This information will be provided to the Stock Exchange. 3. Financing income/markup under securities lending and borrowing regulations, margin financing and any other leverage products as approved by SECP, would be taxed at the rate of 10%, as full and final tax. 4. Gain or loss under day trading and trading in derivative products would be subject to CGT und...

In order to facilitate the corporate sector, the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan has re-launched the Companies Regularization Scheme (CRS) and Companies Easy Exit Scheme (CEES) simultaneously. Both schemes shall remain operative for a period of three months, from July I to September 30, 2010. The objective of these initiatives is to provide regularization as well as exit facilities to the defaulter companies at the same time. Now these companies can either get their defaults of non-filing of documents regularized under CRS or avail the exit facility under CEES. The CRS provides defaulter companies an opportunity to file their overdue statutory returns and annual accounts. It may be mentioned that normally the defaulting companies have to file their overdue returns with usual filing fee plus three time additional fee and also face penal action for late filing of documents. This Amnesty Scheme shall, however, provide the companies to pay less fee and also absolve them of...

Mohammed Sohail Local and foreign investors have raised many questions since the imposition of tax on gains made through share trading. It is so, as this tax has been imposed after a gap of more than three decades. In order to clarify some issues, following is a response to frequently asked queries. These answers are based on our understating and may change if tax authorities clarify the matter which they hopefully will in next few days. When will this tax be imposed? This tax will be imposed from July 1, 2010 on realised capital gains. There is some confusion regarding tax rate mentioned for tax year 2010 which we believe would be clarified as this tax will not be implemented before June 30, 2010. What is the rate of tax? For FY11 the gains realised from securities held for less than six months, the rate of annual income tax is 10 per cent and for securities held for more than six months and less than one year the annual tax liability would be 8 per cent of the gained amount. Again th...

Islamabad, May 17, 2010: The Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (Commission) has filed a criminal complaint in the competent Court of Law against Capital One Equities Limited, ex-member Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) along with its directors, officers and persons involved in non-transfer of shares/funds and unauthorized pledges of client’s shares and other prohibitive activities under the Section 24(2) of Central Depositories Act, 1997 as well as offences under relevant provisions of Pakistan Penal Code. The Honorable Court vide Order dated May 13, 2010 has issued warrants of all the accused persons. The Commission received number of investors’ complaints/claims against KSE Brokers during the first half of 2009 mainly pertaining to the alleged non-transfer of shares and non-payment of funds. The Commission directed the Brokers to resolve complaints and to make necessary arrangements for transfer of shares into respective Central Depository Company (CDC) accounts of the comp...

National Bank of Pakistan has signed deals with two Saudi Banks for home remittances’ delivery to Pakistan. Under the agreement Al-Rajhi Bank, the largest Islamic bank in the world through its Tahweel Al-Rajhi Remittance Centers and Bank Al-Bilad through the Enjaz Remittance centres will send Pakistan bound home remittances to NBP for onward delivery to beneficiaries, according to NBP. The bank President Syed Ali Raza said on Friday that both these banks are top banks in the remittance business in Saudi Arabia and having remittances arrangements with them is likely to boost remittances to Pakistan. In a short span, NBP has made major structural changes and has completely revamped NBP’s home remittances set up with the ultimate goal to provide value added, fast, reliable and convenient services to customers. In recent months, remittances delivery has shown remarkable growth despite recent global financial crisis due to strong initiatives taken by the government, NBP said.

Profit taking suppressed prices of leading scrips at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) yesterday as 100 Index shed 8.12 points to close at 10,607.03 dealers said. A dealer at a leading brokerage house said that market opened with a bullish note for a short spell but slipped on selling pressure which mounted due to profit taking. The turnover volume was low at 153.863 million shares as 228 scrips advanced while 155 sustained losses and 20 remained unchanged. The market capitalisation also eroded by Rs 473 million to Rs 3.007 trillion. Lotte Pak was the volume leader with a turnover of 17.415 million shares followed by NIB Bank to 14.933 million shares, TRG Pak 14.095 million shares, Amtex Ltd 8.660 million shares and Maple Leaf Cement 7.922 million shares.

Much-awaited consensus among the political parties over the 18th Constitutional Amendment immediately after, apparently, successful Pak-US Strategic Dialogue boosted up the sentiment of stock trade on the local bourses during the week ending Friday last. Still some players remained cautious in the wake of ongoing proceedings in the apex courts regarding the implementation of its earlier judgement against the defunct as well as infamous National Reconciliation Ordinance. Traders opened the week under review on a negative note and the market shed almost a percentile in one go. Apart from other deterrents, the players kept on sidelines due to fact that the State Bank of Pakistan kept the interest rates unchanged in its latest quarterly review. Political uncertainties emanating from the pressure building up on President Asif Ali Zardari as well as the Government for reopening of the Swiss cases forced some major players to stay out of the wring throughout the week. Pundits attributed the ...