The government employees, industrialists and businessmen have declared federal budget 2014-15 as a painful budget which would add miseries for the masses. They said the budget is not relief oriented. Government employees also rejected 10 percent raise in salaries.
The government has failed to achieve tax recovery target and lost Rs 331 billion in this regard. The general public has been experiencing high rate of price hike. A very meagre amount of Rs 26.80 billion has been allocated for health sector in the federal budget 2014-15. Similarly, 6.7 million children are out of schools but the education budget wouldn't meet the requirements, they added.
Talking to newsmen, industrialist Iqbal Hassan said the budget has protected only a special class in the society, leaving no relief to the poor people. The rich people are relived from tax net like manufacturing sector, adding big houses are exempted from tax.
Mian Iqbal said the government has been encouraging import of spare parts to destroy the base of domestic sector. The government needs to distribute subsidy among all the stakeholders of economy instead discriminate in subsidy distribution, he added.
The government has given a major relief to stock investors and brokers by increasing the capital gain tax. In a major concession to stock investors and brokers, the government decided to put off increasing capital gain tax from 10 to 17.5 percent, which they had promised to impose from January 1, 2014, in the last budget. However, under pressure from the brokers, it has backtracked and imposed 12.5pc capital gain tax for securities held for 12 months and 10pc for up to 24 months.
Finance Minister Ishaq Dar also announced reducing corporate tax rate from 33 to 20 percent till June 2017 to encourage investment in construction and housing projects. The budget also reduced tax on marriage functions. These measures will benefit various businesses in the country, they mentioned.
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