FAISALABAD: Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FCCI) President Rana Sikandar-e-Azam Khan has said that international and regional economic turnaround had necessitated the documentation of economy and in this connection Government of Pakistan must take necessary steps in addition to the announcement of amnesty scheme to promote the trend of documentation in trade and business.
He said that repeated amnesty schemes were necessary to bridge widening gap for Balance of Payments. He said that government had rightly fixed its targets to enhance exports from US$ 25-30 billion up to next financial year and in order to achieve this target, the government should give necessary incentives to the traders as well as businessmen to enter into mainstream of economy.
“Although the present government is already making efforts for documentation of economy, yet difference between documented and undocumented economy is 75 percent which is very alarming and in prevailing economic scenario we cannot achieve the objective of progress and prosperity,” he added.
He said that due to the international recession, more than 38 countries including Italy and Turkey had to announce amnesty type schemes for the revival of their economies.
Regarding international undocumented economies, he said that Pakistan was ranked 4th in the world and it was only due to this reason that government had repeatedly announced amnesty schemes to attract maximum finance in documented economy. He said that the industrial sector had been paying maximum taxes while other sectors were enjoying exemptions.
He paid best tribute to Mian Muhammad Idrees former President FPCCI for raising this important issue during the FPCCI meeting and said that repeated amnesty schemes should continue till the conversion of undocumented economy into the documented one.
He welcomed the PM directive to the Finance Minister to review this proposal and announce another amnesty scheme at an early date and said that it would incentivize the businessmen as well industrialists to begin their capital into the documented economy which would help government to get maximum tax revenue through documentation of economy.
He also criticized the elements opposing this scheme and alleged that opponent of these amnesty schemes were those who were themselves exempted from the taxes and were not paying a single penny to the national exchequer.
He said that the share of agriculture in GDP was 21% but it was not reflected in the tax revenue while the share of industrial sector was 23% but it was bearing the burden of 66% of taxes.
He said that amnesty scheme was also imperative to save the industrial sector from the protracted crisis as many industrial units had been fallen sick or forced to trim their operation to 30-40% of their installed capacity.
He stressed the need to broaden the tax base in addition to the introduction of uniform taxation system for all sectors. He further said that it was imperative to put the economy on the right track.
