KARACHI: Chairman of Businessmen Group (BMG) and Former President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Siraj Kassam Teli urged the newly elected office bearers to focus on aggressively taking up and resolving the taxation issues during their tenure in order to provide some relief to loyal taxpayers of Karachi.
Speaking at the 53rd annual general meeting of the KCCI held on Tuesday, he said that the business community of Karachi, which contributes more than 68 percent revenue to the national exchequer, will not tolerate FBR’s taxation policies as Karachi, being the major source of tax collection has been suffering from these policies.
“If the concerned authorities fail to pay attention to the grievances being suffered by existing taxpayers, they will have no other option but to stage sit-ins in Karachi to seek justice,” he warned.
The meeting was also attended by BMG Vice Chairmen Tahir Khaliq, Zubair Motiwala and Anjum Nisar, Ex President Abdullah Zaki, Senior Vice President Muffasar Atta Malik and Vice President Muhammad Idrees, newly elected President Iftikhar Ahmed Vohra, Senior Vice president Mohammad Ibrahim Kasumbi, Vice President Agha Shahab Ahmed Khan and KCCI Managing Committee members.
Underscoring the need to go for aggressive approach, BMG Chairman pointed out that although FBR maintains complete database of tax evaders and has identified more than 700,000 tax evaders but still no action has been initiated against such tax evaders. These tax evaders, Teli said, are living luxurious lives, using credit cards and frequently flying abroad but they don’t pay any taxes while the loyal taxpayers of Karachi city were being overburdened due to discriminate taxation policies.
