The city’s small traders have warned the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) of a serious agitation if the tax authorities failed to simplify the tax return process.
In a statement on Thursday, chairman All Karachi Tajir Ittehad (AKTI) Atiq Mir warned that the traders would burn their tax return statement forms in front of the income tax building if the representatives of FBR did not address the traders’ concerns during the Reforms Conference due to be held at Federation House on November 28.
The traders’ demands, according to the statement, include the deletion of clause “D” from the income tax return form as well as revision of the recently-increased rate of turnover tax.
“The traders would also not be filing their income tax returns statements this year,” Atiq said. The trader said the FBR, through introducing some controversial clauses, had made the filing of income tax returns more difficult.
“This has not only made the taxpayers look for exit ways, but is also destroying the country’s entire taxation network,” the AKTI chief said. Such policies, the trader warned, if not addressed immediately would increase the size of fiscal deficit to Rs600 billion. These measures, he alleged, were handiwork of the “agents” of International Monetary Fund (IMF) who wanted to push the cash-strapped country towards the backbreaking foreign loans. He demanded of the government to undertake immediate reforms and make the income tax statement form a one-page and Urdu-language document for facilitating the taxpayers