Daily Times

The All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran (APAT) on Saturday rejected the draft of fixed tax regime, saying it was full of contradictions and against the aspirations of small traders, which could never be implemented.

Addressing a press conference at the Lahore Press Club, APAT Central General Secretary Naeem Mir expressed his serious concern over the newly released draft of fixed tax regime, calling upon the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to finalise the fixed tax schemes in consultation with small traders so that the new schemes should be acceptable to all sections of traders and help in improving the tax revenue of the country.

He stated that traders don’t accept the lollypop of fixed tax scheme and tore the draft into pieces during the press briefing.

The APAT central general secretary termed the scheme a joke with over 3.1 million traders of the country, saying the tax department cannot impose tax on the basis of area of an outlet.

According to the draft of fixed tax scheme, jewellers, real estate agents and chartered accountants have not been included in tax net while small traders have been included in this scheme who are already paying taxes through power bills.

Naeem Mir suggested the government to adopt a comprehensive strategy for broadening the tax net. He said the traders are facing multiple challenges in the wake of a new tax regime and amendments made for documentation of the economy, especially the imposition of sales tax at the import stage, retail prices and CNIC condition.

He demanded that the proposed draft of the fixed tax regime must be finalised after consultation with the business community. Traders believe that every citizen must play his/her role in improving economic condition of the country, saying they are not against tax collection. He added that harassment of traders in the name of tax collection must be stopped. He said traders are protesting while FBR is making joke of them.

The APAT’s Central General Secretary said that the government is not serious in resolving the issues of traders, also trying to confuse them on ID card issue. He urged that FBR should take the leaders of trading community on board before finalising these schemes to launch a consensus fixed tax regime.

Naeem Mir further stated that FBR should make categories of traders and impose fixed tax on them according to their tax paying ability. He said such a scheme should promote tax compliance within the trading community. He said that fixed tax regime must be drafted in a way that it could minimise interaction between taxpayers and tax collectors and eliminate the chances of corruption.