LAHORE: Excise and Taxation Department is working on the principles including efficiency, accountability and transparency.
This was wtated by Provincial Minister for Excise and Taxation Mian Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman while speaking at “Promotion of Tax Culture in Punjab” here at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The seminar was jointly arranged by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry and Punjab Excise and Taxation Department.
The LCCI Senior Vice President Almas Hyder, Vice President Nasir Saeed, Secretary Excise and Taxation Dr. Ahmed Bilal, LCCI Executive Committee Members Kamal Mahmood Amjad Mian, Mian Abdul Razzaq, Raja Adeel Ashfaq, Mian Zahid Javed, Raja Hamid Riaz, former Vice President Kashif Anwar, officials of the department Akram Ashraf Gondal, Rizwan Sherani, Fizza Shah, Syed Asim Amin, Imran Saeed and experts spoke on the occasion.
Provincial Minister for Excise and Taxation Mian Mujtaba Shuja-u-Rehman said that a strong, sound and equitable taxation system is a must for economic stability. He said that without such a system government cannot provide necessities of life to the people. He said that Punjab government is making all out efforts to promote tax culture in Punjab. He said that government needs resources to spend on the provision of best services to the people of Punjab.
Secretary Exicise and Taxation Dr. Ahmed Bilal said that He said that the Excise & Taxation Department is striving for transparency and trust building between government and business community.
The LCCI Senior Vice President Almas Hyder suggested to establish a facilitation desk from the Department to which Secretary Excise & Taxation agreed. He said that the challenges posed by complicated and lengthy taxation procedures, should be tackled on priority basis to give expansion to the tax net. He said that to encourage the new taxpayers, government should make taxation system business friendly and should also bring down the number of duties and taxes. He said “business community is well aware of the fact that government needs money to spend on education, health, security, telecommunication and infrastructure but to get the desired results, government would have to introduce equitable, justified and transparent taxation system. He said that instead of putting burden on the existing taxpayers, government should broaden the tax net.
Almas Hyder said that government should withdraw the indirect taxes which are not only discouraging the honest taxpayers but also hampering the trade and economic activities. While citing the example of Land Conversion charges, he said that this undue tax and one of the reasons of high input cost of the industrial sector. He also suggested the implementation of Land Record Management and Information System in Lahore.
He said that flaws in taxation system causing loss of billions of rupees to the national exchequer. He said that tax reforms like developed countries could enhance the government revenue.
The LCCI Vice President Nasir Saeed said that Pakistan was the rising star in 1960s and a number of countries adopted Pakistan as role model but now situation is quite different and now those countries are far ahead which were following us. He said that Pakistan needs to invest more to growth. He said that Pakistan’s spending on core government functions is low. A large part of core spending is financed through fiscal deficits. He said that increasing core spending exacerbates the debt problem which further erodes future fiscal space.
The experts on the occasion said that Promotion of tax culture is need of the hour and is a must to boost the tax to GDP ratio which is one of the lowest in the world. Paying tax is a national obligation and every person, having taxable income, should discharge his national responsibility to lay foundation of a new era of economic development. The experts said that in the population of over 19 million, number of taxpayers is negligible therefore government should introduce reforms in consultation with the stakeholders to bring untaxed sectors into the tax net which would certainly curtail burden from the honest taxpayers.
