The officials of General Sales Tax (GST) department have been accused of discouraging the traders seeking registration under the Sales Tax Act on one pretext or the other, by using delaying tactics deliberately.
This was stated by the Vice-Chairman, General Sales Tax and Refund Sub-committee of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Abdul Majeed Memon, in a letter to the Collector of Sales Tax (Hq), Sohail Afzal.
He alleged that the VAT mode of general sales tax (GST) scheme, which was considered as a future tax and a leading source of the government revenue, was in infancy stages and had not yet emerged as a problem immune tax.
He said for this purpose, the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) and the KCCI, which served as a bridge between the government and the trade and industry, were striving hard to bring all the potential traders in the GST fold and promote documentation of the economy.
He noted that when the traders approached the Collectorate for getting themselves registered, they were generally discouraged by the tax officials on one pretext or another, by using delaying tactics counter-productive to both the government and the chamber's efforts.
He said that the chamber daily-received complaints from its members about hurdles being created by the tax officials in their registration.
This created mistrust and shook confidence of the business community in taxation policy and the tax collecting machinery, which was a pre-requisite for making any scheme popular.
He also quoted a case of Data Traders International, which applied for registration under the Sales Tax Act in December, but they have still not been given the registration number.