FAISALABAD. Chaudhary Muhammad Nawaz, President FCCI has welcomed the proposed incentives for the non-filers in order to bring them into tax net and demanded that same incentives and facilities should also be provided to the filers.
According to a statement, he said that classification of filers and non-filers prompted a long debate which also affected the normal business activities in the country.
Finance Ministry initially imposed 0.6 percent With Holding Tax (WHT) on banking transactions by non-filers while it was only 0.3 percent for the filers. On the protests and demands of business community, the Government withheld this decision for three months which was, however, again imposed from the month of October this year by trimming rate of WHT from 0.6 percent to 0.3 percent by the non-filers. This situation triggered confrontation between business community and FBR that also give negative effect on the business activities. It also discouraged the banking industry as people preferred to switching over to the “hundi” and other non-banking channels.
President FCCI, however, expressed satisfaction that Government was trying to resolve this ticklish issue and proposed very attractive incentives for the non-filers to bring them into the tax net. This includes facility to whitening the money up to Rs.5 crore. He said that this proposed formula will hopefully bring this confronted to its logical end but it is surprising that the filers who were already paying taxes to the Government have been deprived of this facility.
He demanded that the Government should announce same incentives for the filers as well as non-filers so that that a balanced business climate could be provided to all businessmen without any discriminate.
