The Federation of Pakistan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) and business community on Wednesday hailed appointment of Rukhsana Yasmin as the Chairperson Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and said that she would take effective steps for addressing problems confronting the corporate sector and traders.
Welcoming her appointment, FPCCI Chief Ghazandar Bilour, SAARC CCI Senior Vice President and Central Chairman United Business Group (UBG) Iftikhar Ali Malik said that this is an honour of the country that first time in history a woman has been appointed to assume the charge of the country's top revenue collecting agency.
They hoped that she would fully exploit her potential to restructure the entire taxation system of Pakistan in order to make it business friendly. They further said she would take sustainable and durable result-oriented actions to broaden tax base in Pakistan and potential non-tax payers must be brought into tax net at all cost and chambers will cooperate with the government in this regard. Iftikhar Malik said the FPCCI and UBG in principle agreed to lend helping hand to FBR in this regard. He said plugging of revenue leakage and broadening of tax net will ultimately benefit the existing tax payers in terms of reduction in heavy taxation.
He said all chambers across the country will not only resolve the issues being faced by the traders but also convince the trading community to pay their due taxes timely. "Around 1.2 million people pay taxes in Pakistan while the number of traders paying tax on electricity bills surpasses seven million, this gap can be bridged through sincere efforts backed by the government," he added.
He said survival of the Pakistan is directly linked with better economy followed by stable political government. He said none of the traders in the whole country is happy with levy of irrational taxation on industry. He said the government should offer special package for power and gas tariffs for rapid industrial growth on the pattern of China.
He said as a result of high tariffs and taxation, cost of production is increasing and cannot compete in global market thus badly hampering export substantially. He said there were 80 million CNICs holders in the country.
After applying criteria of exclusion of having age below 25 and above 80 years, residing in rural areas, earning income from agriculture or even other mechanism, there should be 8 to 10 million people who should have been brought into tax net. But, first, he said the FBR will have to place fair taxation system that does not allow choking of growth of businesses legitimate profits.
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