Daily Times

Sir: Besides suffering from lingering electricity load shedding and outages of varying durations, domestic consumers are also paying as many as five taxes and surcharges on their bills apart of TV fee.

These taxes, surcharges and duties include excise duty, general sales tax, Neelum-Jhelum surcharge, FC surcharge and TR surcharge. I contacted some WAPDA officials to find out as to for what TR surcharge stands for but in the first instance, there was no response from some cell and landline numbers, and one XEN who responded on a cell phone said that he was not aware of it.

Of these taxes and surcharges, TR Surcharge is the heaviest and is charged on some 25 to 35 percent basis of LESCO bill. I have two latest domestic consumer bills with me. TR Surcharge on LESCO bill of Rs7405 is Rs870 on one bill, and on the bill of Rs 7543, it is as much as Rs 2565. I have no idea how this is calculated. Furthermore, it is quite painful to mention that on the payable bill of Rs12700, LESCO share is 63 percent and taxes account for 37 percent, more than one-third of the total bill. The other bill of Rs10220 has LESCO share 72 percent taxes 28 percent.

As the new federal budget for the financial year 2017-18 is being presented in the National Assembly on May 26, there is some time to make a passionate appeal to the prime minister to get these taxes and surcharges revised downwards.

With a heavy heart, it is pointed out that while the domestic consumers are being charged so heavily on account of taxes and surcharge besides costly electricity, they are not aware as to what these taxes and duties are and whether these were part of the Finance Bill 2016 when the budget for outgoing fiscal was passed by the parliament in June last year.

ASMAAR BILAL

Lahore