Daily Times

All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran (APAT) Central General Secretary Naeem Mir on Sunday said the body was going to hold its important meeting in Islamabad today (Monday) to decide its future strategy on shutter-down strike in case the government did not accept traders’ demand

Addressing a press conference at the Lahore Press Club, Naeem Mir lamented that the government had not accepted a single demand of the traders, forcing them to go for another shutter-down strike.

He said the government was not serious in resolving the issues of traders because it had not even accepted demands of those traders who had not observed the shutter-down strike, which was very unfortunate.

He said that government had made a commitment to announce fixed tax scheme for the traders, but it could not be declared despite a lapse of two weeks. He criticised the government for engaging the fake trade bodies in talks, who were not the real stakeholders. He said that government was also trying to confuse the traders on ID card issue.

Naeem Mir, on this occasion, also asked the provincial Minister for Industry Mian Aslam Iqbal to play his role of mediator between the federal government and the traders. He said the minister, at least, should get those issues resolved, which he mentioned in a list after a meeting with the traders.

The All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran central general secretary also demanded the explanation of various clauses of the budget and tax anomalies through a letter sent to the FBR chairman and finance minister.

He said that the budget, along with new tax laws, was being implemented from August 1, 2019, with all relaxation being withdrawn, and added that the traders wanted clarification of a few clauses of the tax laws so that the atmosphere of panic and fear among the traders fraternity could be removed.

He demanded the explanation of the clause: ‘CNIC is now required to be mentioned in sale invoice of the trader’.

In case it is subsequently proved that CNIC provided by the purchaser was not correct, liability of tax or penalty shall not arise against the seller.

The issues of sales tax schedule three: the items under schedule three where retailer will not submit his/her CNIC and in case of active taxpayer he/she will pay tax of 1.5 percent turnover tax on his turnover. In this case how the FBR will charge turnover tax of 7.5 percent from the retailer or active taxpayer, he wondered.

“If the FBR is going to charge 1.5 percent turnover tax then why it demands profit and loss based accounts documents on annual basis to be submitted to the tax department which are usually fake and bogus.”

The central general secretary also asked the FBR chairman and finance secretary to remove the confusion of such clauses and parts of the new tax laws.