Pakistan Business Council (PBC) strongly supports the demand of the Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh that provinces effectively tax agricultural income and real estate. Dr Sheikh is reported to have made this statement at the recently concluded first review meeting of the seventh NFC award, in which the provincial finance ministers along with their secretaries participated.
The PBC is of the opinion that the governments, including the provincial governments, have to increase their tax base by bringing under taxed sectors of the economy into an effective tax net as opposed to imposing additional taxes on existing taxpayers. Further, the PBC feels that the imposition of the RGST, which is one suggested measure for documenting the economy, would find greater acceptance if all incomes including those that the Finance Minister has indicated, are brought into the tax net.
As a first step, the PBC has echoed the views of the Finance Minister and called on the provinces to start collecting tax on agricultural income under the Land Revenue Act 2000. It has expressed its disappointment that none of the provinces have implemented this law in its true spirit in the last 11 years. At the same time PBC urged the Federal government to take urgent reform measures for cutting down public sector enterprise losses and eliminate waste in government expenditures. The PBC has recently launched an initiative to create across the board national consensus on an Agenda for Economic Reform. Reduction of the fiscal deficit is one of the major pillars of the reform agenda.-PR