Central Secretary General of All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajran (APAT) Naeem Mir has demanded of the government to extend deadline of filing tax returns under Voluntary Tax Compliance Scheme (VTCS) till June 30, to avail maximum benefit.
Addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Sunday, Naeem Mir said that deadline for VTCS is February 29. He said that the Scheme came into effect on first February but was actually kicked off on February 10. He said that the scheme was finalised after four months of negotiations and it took another four months for the government to get it approved from parliament. In this situation, the deadline was very close, he added. Naeem Mir said that if the deadline for tax amnesty scheme was extended to June 30, the APAT would launch a nation-wide awareness drive among traders to highlight benefits of this scheme so that they become filers, join the tax net and start paying taxes instead of paying something under the table to the tax collectors. On the other hand, we will hold a nation-wide meeting of our office-bearers in Islamabad to discuss the post-February situation, he maintained. He said, "We all wanted this scheme to cater to at least one million traders but it cannot be done just in 16 days. We could not even launch awareness campaign in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to the murder of provincial head Halim Jan at the hands of criminals and extortionists, while no preparations have been made for Balochistan."