Small traders have appreciated the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for its decision to remove the condition of showing details of expenditures in D-form saying the move to boost the investors' confidence.
Talking to Business Recorder on Saturday, Chairman All Karachi Tajir Ittehad, Atiq Mir said the FBR should fully scrape this condition for small traders, who were already facing multiple challenges like law and order, financial crunch, power shortage and political uncertainties.
"The FBR should also reverse the decision aimed at raising the turnover tax by 0.5 percent to 1 percent," he demanded. He said the FBR should introduce a single page tax form in Urdu language so those small traders who do not understand English could also fill the form without any difficulty. He said that many pages of tax forms written in English were not proving helpful in tax collection.
He was previously of the view that the difficult text of tax forms in English was making the taxpayers escape from filling the returns, which was having negative impact on revenue collection. He asked the tax office to facilitate the small traders. He also urged the tax office to reform its system of tax collection so that those who were now frightened also begin paying taxes.
He said the FBR should also restore the previous policy of income tax deduction in line with the adjustment or refund patterns. He was of the view that the increasing interaction of FPCCI and FBR would boost the tax culture in the country besides help removing the deficiencies and weakness of the system for a better revenue collection mechanism.
Mir also rejected the government plans of two weekly holidays, increase in electricity prices by Rs 3-4 per unit and early closures of markets immediately after sunset. He said that if the government fails to meet small traders' demands then they would stage protest demonstration.