LAHORE: Pakistan Industrial and Traders Associations Front (PIAF) Chairman Irfan Qaiser Sheikh, Vice Chairmen Iqbal Baig Chughtai and Shahzeb Akram in a press statement on Friday have denounced the imposition of reformed GST and said that dictation of IMF
and hence imposition of reformed GST would push the already crisis-hit industry to the wall and would lead to a further hike in prices of daily use food items. Prices of medicine would also rise and the common man would severely suffer.
They blamed the government for not consulting with the real stake holders and claimed that implementation of reformed GST would break the backbone of common man and would also mangle the industrial sector.
They lamented that government was taking steps under directions of the IMF and urged the government to consult with other political parties and businessmen.
They said that the business community had supplemented governments for the help of catastrophe-hit flood victims and also extended best cooperation for their early rehabilitation. However, the government had planned to suck the blood of business community rather than providing relief.
They said that the government should have come up with a package of incentives for trade and industry which is faced with multiple challenges and added that the current economic scenario did not allow businessmen could not afford brutal reformed GST.
They suggested the government to focus on home-grown policies instead of taking dictations from the IMF who possess little understanding of the ground realities.
They said that political parties were strongly opposing the implementation of reformed GST; however they should take practical measures in the larger interest of the country. They said that reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) would aggravate the melancholy of the industry that was already on the edge of destruction due to prolonged gas outages.
The PIAF leaders urged the government to enhance the tax base and get agriculture sector, landlords and stock market into the tax net. They said that business community would not accept the reformed General Sales Tax and would strongly resist forced implementation of this tax.
