The Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry has warned the government that business community would resist new taxation measures, as approval of Reformed General Sales Tax and flood surcharge has been given at a time when all the businesses were facing multiple challenges.
The LCCI office-bearers President Shahzad Ali Malik, Senior Vice President Sheikh Mohammad Arshad and Vice President Sohail Azhar in their joint statement on Wednesday criticised the Federal Cabinet for granting approval to Reformed General Sales Tax and flood surcharge.
According to them, the new taxations are bound to jack-up further the already highest rate of inflation. It is very unfortunate that the new taxation measures had been approved without giving consideration to the ground realities. They said that new taxation measures would not only further increase the prices of essential commodities, but would also be putting extra pressures on already taxed people.
"Instead of widening the tax net and bringing the untaxed sectors into tax net, the government had taken the other way of squeezing those who were already in the tax net and paying all government dues regularly", they maintained. The office-bearers urged the government to put off new taxation measures and let the economy come out of woods otherwise the economic situation would further aggravate and hence creating troubles for the government.
They also urged the government to evolve a strategy to get rid of International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank as it had been proven that both the donors agencies have nothing to do with the well-being of masses and they have their own agenda. The government should chalk out a medium-term plan for the support of economy and to give impetus to business activities in the country and for the purpose it should immediately convene a roundtable of all the stakeholders. They hoped that the parliament would reject new taxation measures.