ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called upon the government to announce developing all tax forms in Urdu language in the forthcoming budget and making them simple to facilitate the taxpayers.
ICCI President Muzzamil Hussain Sabri, Senior Vice President Muhammad Shakeel Munir and Vice President Muhammad Ashfaq Hussain Chatha said that the current tax return forms in English are so complicated and lengthy that it is very difficult for a common taxpayer to easily understand and fill them correctly.
The ICCI office-bearers said the difficult tax return forms are one of the main reasons of low tax-to-GDP ratio in the country. They said the completion of tax return forms is a challenging job, especially for small businesses as they cannot afford to hire the services of tax experts to fill the tax returns. They stressed that the government should accord high priority to simplifying the tax forms and taxation procedures that will help in improving the tax revenue of the country.
They said that according to a World Bank study, a taxpayer in Pakistan has to spend 560 hours on dealing with tax matters against the global average of only 267 hours. It shows that taxpayers have to spend a considerable time for tax compliance in our country and the government should take measures to make taxation system simple and easy for enhancing tax compliance.
They said the prevailing tax system is also unfair and unjust as it provides many tax exemptions and concessions to certain sectors of the economy, while overburdening business and industry, due to which business entities have to share a heavy tax burden. They said that tax exemptions and concessions of Rs 342 billion were provided to independent power producers during 2012-13, an amount that was almost 46 percent of the total income tax revenue.
They said that in the new budget, the government should take tangible initiatives to simplify the tax return forms and print them in Urdu. The government should also develop a fair taxation system that should bring every taxable income into the tax net.
