KARACHI: The Karachi Tajir Action Committee, a traders’ action committee, has called a three-day strike in the city against new taxes imposed in the 2019-20 budget.
Addressing a press conference, office-bearers of Tajir Action Committee, Rizwan Irfan, Jamil Paracha, Sharjeel Gopani, Jaffar Koria, Saleem Memon said that the shutter down strike has been called on Monday. The traders have made 11 demands that they want the government to fulfill. These include the removal of the VAT, a reduction in taxes to 0.3%, no sales tax on up to Rs10 million sales and no income tax on people making up to Rs1.2 million a year.
They also want the government to charge a fixed income tax from shopkeepers and stop its condition of customers’ CNICs required for transactions over Rs50,000.
Karachi Tajir Action committee has also demanded of the government to introduce fixed tax regime for traders with four different slabs and asked the revenue body to stop harassing traders in the name of audit.
The traders unit demanded to abolish the new taxation regime for mobile phones and proposed Rs400/piece tax. They also demanded to withdraw regulatory duty at the rate of 10 percent on import of used and second hand cloth.
Last month, the All Pakistan Anjuman Traders rejected the budget and its head Ajmal Baloch said business had been affected because of the higher taxes. If the government doesn’t accept our demands, we will stage protests across the country, he warned.
