ISLAMABAD: Senator Mohsin Khan Leghari, member of Senate Committee on Finance, has said that instead of imposing new taxes, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) should focus on modernising the techniques in the field to collect taxes at higher level and broaden the tax base.
He shared these views while talking to Customs Today. He added that the FBR should be assigned achievable targets as it has to revise the targets twice or thrice in a year. He said that government wanted to raise tax collection but without developing any mechanism.
The major source was indirect taxation due to which, rich and poor segment of society have to pay equal taxes that was worsening the economic condition of country, he said, suggesting that potential taxpayers must be driven into tax net.
He said that every native of the Pakistan should pay the payable taxes considering it a national responsibility.
Appreciating the tax measures taken by FBR during this year 2015 i.e. imposition of tax on banking transactions, Laghari said that such steps would help the department to bring the non-taxpayers into tax net. He also added that different trade bodies were portraying the imposition of withholding tax on banking transactions as huge burden but in fact it was in favour country.
He said that former chairman Ali Arshad Hakeem had conducted a survey during his tenure in which, he calculated that almost three million potential taxpayers were out of taxation that should be brought into tax net.
Saying that the finance ministry should work for revival of the economy rather than to focus on the revenue collection, Leghari added that the ministry should make business-friendly policies to attract foreign and local investors instead of relying on domestic and international borrowings.
Responding to a question, he said that the value of our money was already unstable against the dollar, adding that the price of dollar directly affected the trends of trade. A down fall has been witnessed in exports even after obtaining GSP plus status that was another sign of great concern, he said.
Talking about the plight of Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) and Pakistan Steel Mill, he said that political influence in recruitment of the employees should be eliminated as these departments have to issued salaries to employees more than their income.
