LAHORE: The representative of local business community has urged the both sides, ie government and traders, to resolve the issue of withholding tax on banking transactions on non-filers to avoid the further losses.
This was stated by Lahore Businessmen Front (LBF) Senior Vice President Tahir Malik, while talking to the state-owned news agency. He said that a vast majority of business community was not interested in strikes and protests as they want to do result-oriented dialogue with the government for resolving their issues.
The loss which the business community, the government and the whole economy is facing due to strikes is in billions of rupees, he added.
He dispelled the impression that businessmen don’t want to pay taxes and said, “Our people want to pay taxes on rational basis and want to extend all out cooperation with the government for expanding the tax net”.
He said that non-filers of income tax returns should be brought into tax net and the business community was ready to provide all out cooperation in this regard.
“Banks are collecting taxes from filers and non-filers as they have no mechanism to differentiate between them”, he said. He said that FBR should make arrangements for providing facility to the banks for enabling them to avoid charging withholding from filers.
He urged the government to take practical and result-oriented steps in this regard and assured that business community would provide all out assistance.
