Former President of Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) Dr. Shahid Rasheed Butt on Wednesday said scrapping fixed tax on shopkeepers is a wrong move and is against the national interests.
How can the government run the country if taxes are not collected from the third largest sector of the economy, he said.
The country will continue to depend on borrowing and eventually go bankrupt if the tax revenue does not increase, he said.
Shahid Rashid Butt said that the withdrawal of tax on retailers shows that the government is not serious about increasing tax revenue as the priority is being given to politics over the economy.
He said that the situation shows that the government will take only those steps for reforms which the IMF will force.
He added that the government will have to put an additional burden on existing taxpayers and masses to meet the target given by the IMF and a mini-budget can also be introduced.
He said that more than 80 percent of the country’s wealth is invested in the property sector, due to which the productive sector has been paralyzed, but despite this sector is enjoying undue tax relaxations.
Similarly, like agriculture, influential stockbrokers are also given exemptions which are against the interests of the country.
The government is left to collect taxes from the salaried class, industrialists and the service sector because it is as difficult to collect taxes from large industrialists as it is from landlords.
