ISLAMABAD: Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has called upon the government to bring down general sales tax rate to single digit in the upcoming Federal Budget 2015-16 that will help in reducing inflation, boosting business activities and attracting more investment.
ICCI President Muzzamil Hussain Sabri, in a statement here Saturday, said 17 percent general sales tax in Pakistan was very high as compared to many other countries. High GST rate, he claimed, had caused price hike and squeezed the purchasing power of consumers, and was impeding new investment.
He said high GST also affected the margins of manufacturers as they had to share general sales tax burden.
He said the single digit general sales tax would create multiple benefits for the economy, such as a friendly environment for growth of trade and industry, besides reducing inflation, enhancing purchasing power of people, boosting business activities and attracting more investment in the country.
He said low GST would also eliminate malpractice in refund claims and input tax leading to the reduced cost to the national exchequer.
The ICCI President said the main advantage of reducing general sales tax to single digit would be giving big relief to the common man especially to the low and middle income groups.
He also stressed for making income tax return forms very simple and easy to understand for a common taxpayer.
He said complicated tax forms were creating problems for most of the taxpayers and the government should focus on simplifying these things and print tax forms in Urdu to facilitate the taxpayer, which would also help in generating more tax revenue for the country. He said the government should make efforts to expand tax net instead of putting more burdens on existing taxpayers.
