Secretary General of United Business Group (UBG) and chairman FBR committee of FPCCI, Zubair F Tufail has said that a meeting with Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar is expected to be held in next two days to discuss budget anomalies and get them rectified. He said, "There are many anomalies in the federal budget 2016-17 which we want to discuss with the government before its approval by the house and get them rectified."
He said that a committee comprising of the FPCCI representatives from Islamabad, Punjab, Sindh, KP and Balochistan will begin deliberations with the Finance Minister and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to remove all anomalies from the budget. He said that the government has increased taxes on plastic industry and billet - an important raw material for steel from 5 to 11 percent, while one rupee per one kg Federal Excise Duty (FED) on cement.
These taxes will be detrimental for the development of industries and businesses; he said, adding that the government should focus on widening tax base rather than imposing further taxes on present taxpayers. He said that rice industry is also a very important in terms of export and this industry should be given status of zero-rated industry. He said that the federation has given various proposals to the government for the betterment of business and industry of the country out of which government has included some of these proposals in the budget.
He said that five export-oriented sectors have been given status of zero-rated but one of the major foreign exchange earning sectors rice industry is not included in the list of zero-rated sector. He also demanded to bring rice industry into fold of zero-rated sector. Spokesman for the UBG, Gulzar Firoz said, "We do not reject the budget in total we support some of the budgetary measures."