Islamabad: The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) has demanded the government to make specific categories of traders and then designate fixed tax rates for them to make tax payment easy and hassle-free, according to news reports.
The Finance Bill for 2019-20 has introduced many new taxes on traders which has led them to protest against the government’s tax measures enforced across the country.
ICCI President Ahmed Hassan Moughal suggested that the government should allot fixed tax rates based on categories. According to him, this would facilitate easier tax payment and increase tax compliance within the trading community. Such a system would minimise the interference of tax collectors and decrease their interaction with the tax payers. Thus, it could possibly lower chances of corruption.
In Moughal’s view, the new regulations introduced by the Finance Bill 2019 are stringent and laborious. They require importers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors to write the CNIC number of all buyers on their bills plus they also have to collect cheques for all amounts exceeding PKR 50,000. Additionally, suppliers for shops exceeding annual sales of PKR 10 million will be taxed 4.5%. The ICCI believes these regulations make work more difficult for traders thus, have requested that they be withdrawn.
The major concern of the ICCI is regarding the increased burden being put on traders while paying and filing taxes. It has become unfriendly for the business community and turned into an extremely time-consuming process, in their opinion. They insisted that the government needs to create an environment more suited for the business community instead of making it more difficult for them. This would also be in the best interest of the government as it will help boost the economy.
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