The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) won its first conviction for money laundering offence involving massive tax evasion. The tax body won the case against a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa-based businessman. The case was about tax evasion of Rs 2090 million and illegal activities including money laundering.
Money laundering is a serious financial crime of making black money that appears to come from a legitimate source. Governments worldwide have increased their efforts to combat money laundering with regulations that require financial institutions to put systems in place to detect and report relevant suspicious activity. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was formed to combat money laundering on an international scale. Anti-money laundering (AML) seeks to deprive criminals of the profits from their illegal enterprises, thus eliminating the main motivation to engage in such nefarious activities.
Pakistan was one of the countries grey listed by FATF in 2018 for strategic anti-money laundering (AML) deficiencies. To strengthen its AML regime and address counter financing terrorism (CFT) related deficiencies, Pakistan made a high-level political commitment to work with the FATF. Recently, the country has taken swift steps towards improving its AML/CFT act by ensuring that real estate agents register as designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) and follow anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism obligations. The tax department also ensured that no public or private development authority should conduct the business activity with any real estate agent to transfer or register immovable property unless the real estate agent is registered with the FBR as a DNFBP. However, Pakistan needs to carry out more efforts against money laundering as it is still not out from the FATF grey list.
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