LAHORE: Economic Coordination Committee has imposed regulatory duty on luxury items. According to the statement of ECC “International prices of luxury items, like packaged foodstuff, chocolates, cosmetics and electric appliances etc. are showing a declining trend, negatively affecting the revenue of the government. These items are not of daily use, and are purchased by high-end consumers. For bringing more equity into taxation system by enhancing the duties on goods consumed by affluent segments of society, it has been decided to increase regulatory duty on import of luxury items by 5%.”
Public and traders have criticized the imposition of taxes over electric appliances, food stuff, dairy products and chocolates. Talking to Customs Today, traders of electrical home appliances said that imposition of extra taxes would create hurdles for business community as the sale of items would reduce. They said that according to the statement of Finance Ministry international prices of electrical appliances are showing a declining trend. Traders added that increase of tax rate would affect the business of these products more than before and the fruits of declining trends in prices of electric appliances would not give benefit to the public.
On the other hand, public said that government should review its policies regarding taxes over dairy products and electric appliances. They demanded that government should capture the non taxpayers rather than increasing taxes on people who are already paying heavy taxes.
