The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has decided to form two committees to prepare recommendations for sorting out the issue of SROs and evolving strategy to curb the menace of smuggling. The committees will finalise its proposals and send them to the CBR, which would initiate action on it. The decision was taken in a meeting held with CBR Chairman Abdullah Yousuf here at the LCCI, says a LCCI spokesman here on Thursday.
Speaking on the occasion, Yousuf assured the business community that the central board of revenue would do its best to solve the problems being faced by the business community.
He also assured that he would do his best to solve the issues raised during the meeting. He said that business-friendly culture is being introduced in the country in the larger interests of economy. 'We are fast heading towards a real fiscal regime as CBR's success lies in the success of all businesses', he said.
He sought traders' help in evolving a more practical system for finding out a solution to the issues facing the business community.
The well-attended meeting was also addressed by the LCCI President, Mian Misbah-ur-Rehman, Senior Vice-President Sohail Lashari and Vice-President Sheikh Arshad.
Misbah-ur-Rehman urged the chairman CBR to take firm action to check under invoicing, misdeclaration and smuggling to save the local industry. 'If necessary measures are taken, additional revenue of billions of rupees could be collected without imposing any new tax', he said.
He appreciated the CBR for accepting the LCCI proposals on minimum value addition for retailers of motorcycles, rubber, tyres, mild steel products, electronic goods and tinplates along with suspension of sales tax audit for six months.
He said that increase in threshold for retailers, formation of dispute resolution and valuation committees and setting up of directorate general valuation and post clearance audit of custom with powers of section 25 of the Customs Act 1969 are some of the efforts introduced during a short span of time.
Talking about high utility rates, he said that availability of Chinese products in our markets has shattered the limited manufacturing base. Shoes, plastic items, auto parts, readymade garments, steel, electronic items, electrical goods and almost all consumer products are flooding our markets which is evident from the figures of imports from China which were 471.6 million dollars in 1999-2000 is touching the figure of 1,153.7 million dollars in 2003-04.
Sohail Lashari said that there is a lot to be done to fine tune the changes introduced in the budget 2004-05. "We have to follow the cascading formula and creation of sub-headings in different chapters to restrict the change to specific areas and taking the interests of downstream industries into consideration', he said.
He said that frauds in sales tax refunds are creating bad name for the business community and CBR. He requested the CBR chairman to declare 2005 as anti-smuggling year.