ISLAMABAD: The legislation on imposing the Flood Tax will be presented in the Sindh Assembly for approval in the next few days, Sindh Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah said on Sunday.
Giving a presentation on mobilising additional resources for the flood victims of the province at the Pakistan Development Forum (PDF), he said that the intended Flood Tax would be a surcharge and collected in addition to the existing provincial taxes, fees and provincial levies.
Although there was strong opposition on the imposition of the tax, the provincial government would go ahead with levying it, as the flood victims of the province required more financial support, Qaim said. He said the government would ensure that there was no direct impact of the proposed flood tax on the poor people.
It would be collected from people who owned residences of or more than 500 square yards in the urban areas. The CM also said that the government planned to distribute 100,000 acres of agricultural land amongst people who had no land in the rural areas.
He said that the provincial government would look after more than 900,000 flood-affected people who had migrated to Karachi. Meanwhile, Advisor to Sindh CM Dr Kaiser Bengali said that the flood tax would help generate additional revenues to the tune of Rs 27 billion.
