President General Pervez Musharraf has said the revenue collection target for the next year should be Rs one trillion and that the aim for next 10 years is to cross the mark of Rs four trillion. He was addressing as chief guest at the concluding session of National Conference on Tax Administration at a hotel here, on Friday evening.
The two-day moot was organised by the Central Board of Revenue (CBR). The President said "now we are targeting a revenue collection of Rs 835 billion but we expect Rs 900 billion and it is hoped that the target would be met".
He stressed that "we have to increase the revenue collection and pay the taxes". Musharraf said "even now our tax to GDP ratio is low however, we can proudly say that the revenue has risen from Rs 304 billion over the years and now we are targeting Rs 835 billion".
He stressed that next year "we must cross Rs one trillion of revenue collection". The President said with all the reforms and plans that have been chalked out, "in the coming 10 years we are targeting to cross Rs four trillion".
President Musharraf said the taxes must not be increased, because there is a tremendous capacity within the country to increase the revenue. He pointed out that there are people who are minting money but not paying the taxes and are not even in the tax net.
President Pervez Musharraf said we managed to increase the revenue by more than Rs 400 billion and increased the PSDP by Rs 350 billion. Therefore, the money that was raised was utilised for development purposes in the country, he added.
The President said the government is doing a lot of development work and 20 mega projects are being carried out. These include projects like the Katchi Canal, Gwadar Port, Reini Canal, Mangla Dam Raising, improvement of the railways system and brick lining of water courses.
Therefore, he said the taxes should be paid and the target of Rs four trillion should be met in the coming 10 years and if we manage this then Pakistan would all together be a different country.
President Musharraf said the government followed the policies of deregulation, liberalisation and privatisation and created an investors'' friendly environment, besides bringing about a lot of banking reforms.
He pointed out that the banking sector is a success story of Pakistan. The President said after the reforms, the country''s economy is doing exceptionally well by averaging a growth of seven percent over the last five years.
He said never in the country''s history the exports touched dollars 18 billion mark. Our remittances would Inshallah cross dollars five billion mark too, he added. The Foreign Direct Investment which at one stage was dollars 300 million, is going to cross dollars six billion.
President General Musharraf said the benefit of upsurge of economy would be transferred to the people of Pakistan, specially the poor. He said the focus of the government is poverty alleviation, provision of utility services - gas, electricity, safe drinking water and human resource development, health and education.
The President pointed out that poverty has reduced from 34 per cent to around 24 per cent. President General Pervez Musharraf has said that in the reference filed against Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, he took a decision, which is legal and according to the Constitution.
He was speaking at the concluding session of a conference on Tax Administration Reforms Programme organised by the Central Board of Revenue here on Friday. He said now he left it to the judiciary to decide the matter. The President said the reference came from the Prime Minister. He said it was a serious reference and the person concerned was confronted and shown.
The President said he had satisfied himself that this reference was correct. He said the Chief Justice used to visit his home. But now if some reference comes and there are some serious observations, it is the demand of his (President''s) position like any leader to keep personal matter aside and see on merit what has to be done.
In such a case one has to rise and go beyond self and beyond relationship and decide on merit and with justice in state decisions. The President said here was a situation when statecraft demanded that he left personal relations aside and he took that decision, which was legal and constitutional and he left it to the judiciary to decide.