PESHAWAR: Business organizations and representatives in Pakhtunkhwa have rejected the federal budget and taxes and said that the budget is an economic trap for the people.
Leaders of Sarhad Business Alliance, President of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industries and the business community erupted against the proposed budget of the federal government and the plethora of taxes proposed in it. Sarhad Business Alliance and the province’s business community held a joint press conference at the Peshawar Press Club and said that the federal budget and new taxes are a conspiracy to make Pakistan a famine-stricken country like Somalia and Africa.
Business representatives said that more and more new taxes in every sector have created an economic trap for the people. The industrialists of the country have been forced to shift their business abroad and many have already left. Taxes are being imposed on the industries, on the shopkeepers, on the people, on everyone including the household consumers of electricity, the survival of the nation is now looking difficult. A trader-friendly scheme is actually a trader-enemy scheme.
He further said that the federal government has rained taxes on daily items including medicines, everyone will be flooded with this rain. In Pakistan, everything has been taxed so much that now, let alone building a house, even buying a house has become a dream. If the federal government does not revise the tax policies and announce relief, the situation will get worse.
Fawad Ishaq, president of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industries, said in a press conference that the federal budget was actually created by the IMF, on which the business community has serious reservations.
Even if the budget is passed in this form, the industry will also be closed. It is not a trader-friendly scheme but a trader-enemy scheme. The government is not ready to implement the conditions that we had set for accepting the businessman-friendly scheme.
He said that more taxes have been imposed on the already tax payers. Taxes of this kind on traders do not exist all over the world. Penalties for delay in tax collection have been doubled.
Business leader Shaukat Ali Khan said that we want to pay taxes, but not bribes. Taxes are paid by all people, taxes are demanded by the UK and facilities by Somalia. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, every third businessman receives calls for allowance. All organizations are involved in smuggling through Torkham. Name one gate, National Bank or State Bank, where traders will collect taxes.
On the other hand, business leader Senator Elias Bilor while talking to the media said that imposing 2% tax on exports means that the government does not want to export. People are not benefited from IPPs, I don’t understand who is benefiting from IPPs. If you charge more than the status, people will steal electricity. Imposing a fixed tax on domestic consumers is incomprehensible.
