President of Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) Malik Asrar Ahmed Awan has vehemently rejected government's decision to introduce flood surcharge on import items, machinery, automobiles, spare parts, medicines, saying levying of import tax to supplement revenue collection to provide relief to flood victims would not be acceptable.
In a press statement, he said the economy is already faltering with hefty amount of infrastructure being lost in floods and at this moment, levying of 10 percent additional tax on imports would further cripple business and industrial community.
Import tax would increase in the prices of raw material and this would translate increase in prices and push inflation further up, he feared. Awan said government should create ways to 'satisfy IMF conditions' rather than imposing new taxes every other day. Also, at the same time, it should give consideration to the interests of business community, he added. Imposition of unjustified taxes is not acceptable and would never increase the target of government to expand tax base, rather, would act oppositely, he concluded.