Siraj Kassam Teli, President of Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), has emphasised that in the context of globalisation and the emergence of WTO regime, it is imperative that the next budget must contribute to the cost-effectiveness of products to meet the fierce competition abroad.
He urged the government that the forthcoming budget must focus on economic growth, stemming from accelerated investment, more production and higher exports, following sizeable macro-economic stability and resultant available fiscal space.
The KCCI chief stressed that despite significant improvement in almost all economic indicators, the country has not witnessed a major breakthrough in investment, either domestic or foreign.
"A sustainable acceleration in investment indeed holds the key for alleviation of poverty and employment generation. All kinds of facilities and incentives must, therefore, be provided to the entrepreneurs to spur investment, production and exports," he said.
The KCCI president argued that the existing tax base should be broadened by taxing the income wherever it is generated, to avoid the growing tax burden on trade and industry and to equally distribute it on all segments of economy.
Teli emphasised that it was essential that discretionary powers of tax collectors be curtailed and contained to check malpractice's in the tax management.
Teli said that the number of tax assesses and taxpayers can be increased through reduction in the exorbitant tax rates.
He said that budget must also focus on evolving some effective physical and fiscal measures to combat the menace of smuggling, which continues to persist unabated.
He said: "A two-way traffic for discharging financial liabilities be adopted. As the government is keen to recover its tax revenue and other government dues from the people, justice and equity demands that in the same spirit, various dues of the tax payers in the form of refund, duty drawback, rebate etc be made to them in time. The flaws in the duty and tax remission for export rules (DTRE) must be removed".