PML-N`s Mian Abdul Mannan says `we want to save the real estate sector from disaster.
Who do they want to save the real estate business from? What disaster are they talking about? In fact, the real estate business needs to be saved from the realtors and land mafia themselves.
They have been having a roaring businesses for the last few years by manipulating land prices and hoarding land without adding any value to it, which, in most cases, they did not even own.
As a result, people belonging to the middle and upper middle classes cannot even think of owning a plot of land in a regular/recognised scheme.
As regards `disaster`, I looked it up in the dictionary and found the following meaning: `sudden accident or a natural catastrophe that causes great damage or loss of life.
Which realtor has lost his life owing to the new tax or has met with a natural catastrophe like damage to his property? In fact, what they are clamouring about is that the speculative real estate business will be documented and their margins of profit will be reduced.
Furthermore, some of the realtors are also claiming that the home remittances by Pakistani expatriates have fallen and attributing the cause to the new taxation scheme on sale/purchase of property.
This is absolutely incorrect. The major reason for the decline in home remittances is the falling oil prices and the resultant exodus of Pakistani workers from the Gulf area. It is not only Pakistan that has been affected, but a recent survey showed that all the countries in South Asia have shown a downward trend in home remittances.
Therefore, their demand for any amnestyscheme is unjustified, and as rightly said by an FBR member, `The real estate sector was already enjoying preferential treatment as far as taxation was concerned.
