Sindh government urged to waive tax on 10-year old vehicles

Chairman, Provincial /Local Taxes Subcommittee of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Shakeel-ur-Rehman, has urged the government of Sindh to waive motor vehicle tax on vehicles older than 10 years.
In a communication to Minister for Finance Sindh Sardar Ahmed, he said that the government had already waived tax on motorcycles older than 10 years.
He further said that Excise and Taxation Departments of four provinces should be linked with computer network to discourage registration of stolen/hijacked vehicles in other province and cities.
He noted that at present the total tax liability of a property is determined by adding (i) tax on plot area and (ii) tax on covered area. This is tantamount to double taxation. Therefore, to avoid it, he suggested that property tax be levied only on covered area.
He said that under Sindh Stamp Duty Act, stamp duty is payable on all contracts at the rate of 0.2 percent of contract value. The rate of stamp duty is very high as compared to other provinces where it is being charged at fixed amount per document.
He recommended that the rate of stamp duty be rationalised as in other provinces and they should be charged as a fix amount per contract and not calculated as a percentage of value of the contract.
He noted that the Board of Revenue (Sindh) has indiscriminately declared all lands, including agricultural land, situated within the limits of city district government of Karachi (CDGK) as urban areas.
Resultantly, the value of these lands in different areas of Karachi, for the purpose of estimating stamp duty and registration fee etc, is levied on the basis of valuation table for urban property, which certainly is not commensurate with the actual/market value prevailing in remote/ rural areas. This enhances the stamp duty disproportionately, for registration.
He said that as a result, transfers of a large number of such lands could not be registered, and the cases have been lying pending with the concerned sub-registrar office. He proposed that this anomaly should be removed and agricultural lands within the limits of CDGK should be valued at realistic rates.