So the banking industry of Pakistan has seen a major downfall of deposits in the sum of Rs. 710 billion in the month of July and the main reason for such a downfall can be attributed to the fact that this is mainly due to customers panicking and withdrawing money from there own accounts, following the implementation of tax reforms in the country.
Furthermore, the State Bank of Pakistan’s (SBP) have given us the stats which show that the deposits of banking industry have experienced a loss of up to Rs. 13.747 trillion in July 2019 from Rs. 14.45 trillion, which was the figure in June. As per the bankers, many customers have withdrawn money from their saving account which includes local as well as foreign currency in order to save themselves from getting on FBR’s radar. It should be noted that FBR have over the course of time taken some very strict measures, which has resulted in panic which in turn lead to the problem we are talking about.
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FBR have already asked a number of banks to share the data of customers with over Rs. 0.5 million in their accounts (savings and current accounts both). In turn these consumers will be asked for their source of income and income declaration to the tax authority after which FBR will take the necessary action. Banks, so far, have only shared the record of savings accounts with the tax authority.
A number of customers with savings of nearly Rs. 0.5 million in one or multiple accounts have decided to remove money from their bank accounts and have shifted them to a safe or park their savings in investment instruments such as National Saving Certificates, Mutual Funds, Dollars and much more. Consumers who didn’t even have this much amount in there banks also withdrew money from their banks accounts for the reasons aforementioned reasons. It can in turn be concluded that many people are not happy with the recent activity of FBR especially the non filers but it must be done to stop tax evasion in the country and we shall see what the next step from FBR will be. .
