LAHORE: Taxation plays an important part in the economic growth of the country and in the vast national interests everyone should pay their due taxes liabilities. Respect and facilities should be extended to tax payers to convince non tax payers to come in tax net. Smuggling is cancerous for the economy and raids should be conducted at the country and provincial borders. Scarce availability of utilities like electricity and gas that are the major inputs for industrial development is one big impediment in the way of economic development and growth.
This was stated by former Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Vice President Kashif Anwar while talking to Customs Today. According to him everyone should pay taxes and if the government wants to increase revenue and tax base, it should adopt the policy of guidance, education and facilitation.
“No one wants to come in the tax net because of many reasons. The first question of unregistered person is regarding the benefit of coming in the tax net. There is a large number of retailers who are not in tax net and can contribute a big amount of tax,” he said adding that the retailers who are registered in income tax are not considered registered in sales tax, they have to pay extra 2 percent sales tax on their purchases, however they are paying additional sales tax in their electricity bills.
He informed that according to law, they are not supposed to get themselves registered with sales tax if their annual electricity bill is less than Rs 6,00,000 annually. The additional sales tax makes their purchase expensive form the unregistered traders.
He further told Customs Today that the job of increasing the tax base is of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) and not of those who are already in tax net. Persons who register themselves with the FBR are squeezed by complicated policies; he said adding that the rate of sales and income tax is increasing day by day. Talking about refunds he highlighted that there is no refund of withheld tax either income or sales tax and if one asks for refund, he has to face the consequences of audits.
He added that this is very surprising that with the passage of time, number of tax payers is decreasing but the revenue is increasing every year. Instead of increasing facilities for tax payers to persuade unregistered persons to come in tax net, he added further.
He said that tax payers are facing difficulties and in such circumstances, who will come in the tax net when unregistered persons see the complexities of tax payers while persons out of tax net are very happy as no policy is applicable to them. Respect and facilities should be given to tax payers to convince non tax payers to come in tax net.
Smuggling is cancerous for the national economy and raids should be made at the country borders and provincial borders, he said, quoting the example of smuggling from China and held Pakistan customs declared that it has imported goods of worth Rs.7 billion from China and on the other hand China customs declare that they have exported Rs.12 billion worth of goods to Pakistan. Our exchequer suffers a tax loss of billion of rupees, he held, adding that measures should be taken in this regard.
“The scarce availability of utilities like electricity and gas which are major inputs for industrial development is a root cause of many problems. Our industry is shutting down which is increasing smuggling, under-invoicing, imports, unemployment, law and order position, rate of utilities, gas and electricity theft and decreasing exports, tax revenue, local and foreign investment, foreign reserves position, documented economy day by day”, he concluded.
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