ISLAMABAD: President Anjuman-e-Tajraan Pakistan Ajmal Baloch has declared the newly announced budget the best one as it has reduced taxes on some goods including IT and agriculture sectors’ items. Besides these measures, taxpayers have been given some relief and the noose around the neck of the non-taxpayers or non-filers has also been tightened.
Ajmal Baloch said this while giving an interview to Customs Today.
Baloch said the government has imposed new tax measures worth Rs130billion. This amount is nothing as compared to the subsidies and concessions government has given and introduced in the current budget. He admitted that there is nothing in the budget for the ordinary countrymen. He remarked that every person should pay the tax so that burden can be divided equally on all.
The government has reduced five percent tax rate because the numbers of taxpayers and filers have been increased from 0.7 million to 1.225 million. The government is also trying its best to bring more taxpayers in the tax net so that more ratio of tax can be reduced. “In my opinion, this is the only way that government can share a tax burden with the people otherwise government will have to put the burden again on old taxpayers”, he added. He further said though it is the last year of the tenure of the government therefore it has presented a good budget yet it does favor the poor.
No new tax has been imposed or increased on local items so prices of local items should not be hiked, he opined. We all trader community will discourage the inflation, he stressed. We were expecting heavy taxation and strict measures but government has decided to tackle the problems through better management instead of imposition of heavy taxation, he said. I hope a new government will follow these steps, he predicted. “We traders are with Pakistan only, not with any political party. If any government takes good steps for public, we will always support it”, he concluded.
