Non-filers will not pay tax, will adopt the path of cash economy, President Karachi Industrial Alliance
Monday, July 8, 2024
Karachi (Urdu Point Newspaper Latest - NNI. 08 July 2024) Chairman of FPCCI Policy Advisory Board and President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum and All Karachi Industrial Alliance and former Provincial Minister Mian Zahid Hussain has said that the public should accept this budget. It is becoming difficult because everything necessary for life has become expensive. While non-filers and tax defaulters are finding evasive ways to avoid government tax measures, existing taxpayers will be forced to bear the entire burden of tax measures.
The current budget size is 18500 billion rupees and despite the taxes of 12900 billion rupees with an increase of 40%, it has a deficit of 8500 billion rupees to cover which additional borrowing of 5700 billion rupees will be taken.
This year, 10 thousand billion rupees have been set aside for debt servicing, while next year 11 thousand billion rupees will be required, which means that taxes will have to be increased by another five thousand billion rupees, but the budget deficit will remain the same.
In the current budget, changes and experiments have been made in every sector of business activities, including exports. The fear is that as a result of these experiments, if the exports decrease by four to five billion dollars, what will happen to the country's economy? Where experiments have been done in almost every sector of the economy, exports should not be tampered with so that at least one sector would continue to function peacefully.
On the other hand, the tax burden on the salaried has been increased. In the budget, government expenditure, salaries and pensions of top officials have increased, but the people have been left behind. Mian Zahid Hussain, talking to the business community, said that the government has claimed to work on pension reforms and levy of tax on traders, but this work will continue till the next budget, while efforts will be made to save costs by closing some departments. .
If all the economic activities were digitized in the budget, then the term of non-filer would automatically be abolished, the tax base would also be widened and the government would also get the tax comfortably. Mian Zahid Hussain said that as a result of the measures proposed in the budget, the traders will not come into the tax net at any cost, but they will be attracted towards the cash economy. Which is impossible to catch.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that public anxiety is increasing while the government seems confident and is not ready to follow the suggestions of FPCCI, the largest organization of the business community, which is a blatant mistake. FPCCI is also ready to support the government to bring the country out of economic recession, expand exports, tax network and provide convenience to the people.
