LAHORE: Traders and industrialists have urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to resolve the long standing duty and tax related issues.
The businessmen said that there are a number of taxation issues that are hitting the economy hard therefore these issues should be tackled on priority.
They said that the FBR has started imposing heavy fines on retailers/chain stores on non-implementation of POS systems. The Government must take the private sector into confidence before taking such punitive measures and address their apprehensions.
LCCI Senior Vice President Nasir Hameed Khan, Vice President Tahir Manzoor Ch. and the executive committee expressed their deep concern over these issues and asked the President to take up these issues with FBR for an early resolution.
They said that in the post-Covid economic scenario when the taxpayers are facing severe liquidity issues, the number of audits should be decreased considerably. The FBR should follow the policy of only risk-based audits.
He further added that business community is facing a lot of issues regarding the CNIC condition.
The condition of disclosing CNIC for sale to unregistered persons should be abolished in the larger interest of small businesses in the country in this crunch time.
While talking about the rate of duties for commercial importers and industry, they said that the rate of duties for both must be the same so that any misuse of raw materials imported for industry can be discouraged.
Moreover, the Government must eliminate the Regulatory duties on those raw materials which are not manufactured locally. In this regard, the SRO culture should not be misused.
They were of the view that the duties on the raw materials of the pharmaceutical industry should be reduced in order to enhance its competitiveness in both local and international markets. Molded glass vials are a very important raw material of the pharmaceutical industry which is not being manufacture locally but still facing a high rate of Regulatory Duty. This anomaly needs to be rectified.
