Government committee members led by the Prime Minister's Special Assistant on Revenues Haroon Akhtar Khan, MNA Abdul Mannan and the chairman FBR met business and traders' representatives at the Rawalpindi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RCCI) here on Wednesday.
From FBR, senior member Shahid Hussain Asad, member Facilitation Nadeem Dar, Chief Commissioner RTO Rawalpindi and his team, Chief Policy Abdul Hameed Memon, and Zubair Tufail from the Pakistan Federation of Chambers and Industry were part of the delegation from the government formed three committees to discuss issues raised by the business community on matters arising from the new advance income tax withholding of 0.6 percent on bank transactions.
Asad Mashadi and Mian Humayun Parvez, senior vice president, and Younis Dar, senior member were the RCCI representatives. The business representatives initially expressed their reservations on being taxed on their bank transactions. However Prime Minister's Special Assistant Haroon Akhtar and the Chairman FBR Tariq Bajwa dispelled their apprehensions on many counts.
The traders were content to learn that retailers will no longer be subjected to voluntary sales tax registration even if their sales cross the 50 lakh mark. Mian Abdul Mannan MNA said that this was the result of the government's earlier discussions with the business community and is proof of the government's intentions to facilitate the business environment.
Sheikh Muhammad Siddique (Rawalpindi trader) suggested that the government should prioritise one sector and announce the concessions it is willing to accord to it. This will build the confidence of the business community and ease the settlement of other issues sooner. Other prominent businessmen like Sheikh Nasim, MrShamim Ahmed, Sheikh M Arif, Haroon, Afzal Kahut, Hafeez president of Saddar Association, and Nawaz ex-president RCCI, Bakhtawari, and Chaudhry Iqbal spoke on issues that may arise from this tax.
Haroon Akhtar Khan sincerely expressed his advice to the businessmen that Pakistan's tax environment is much more easy than it is in other developed countries, and that with the FBR's increased capabilities of computerisation and data collection the future tax environment in Pakistan is not likely to soften.
He therefore advised them to make most of the present government's willingness to remove genuine concerns of the business community and to implement the tax in manner that brings documentation to the economy and at the same time makes businesses entry into the formal economy an easy matter.
It was expressed that the committees with mutual consultation of the business and the FBR have drafted a simple and one-paged tax return form for new businesses. The form will be included in the recommendations that will be put forward by the committees to government for final decision.
The proposals put forth by business representatives included the levy of income tax on income from agriculture and the suspension of tax on bank transactions for one year, both of which did not find universal support. Other proposals included lower tax rates for high-volume but low profit business, the expansion of the universal self assessment concept to declare income/sale/capital ratios, voluntary enhanced declarations to conditional freedom from audit and sales tax impact be limited to manufacturing and distribution and not to wholesalers and retailers, who could be subjected to a separate simple tax like a tax on consumption.
RCCI President Mashadi who had conducted the meeting, also said that the talks with the government were focused on the next tax declarations and ignored the businessmen who were already subjected to heavy taxation during the past 12 months on account of undeclared bank accounts.-PR