Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF) president and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Sunday lauded Finance Minister Ishaq Dar for accepting some of the tax proposals by the business community.
Withdrawal of some new taxes while relaxations in the others will improve the image of the government and infuse confidence in the business community, he said. The Sales Tax (ST) has been abolished on the poultry feed and reduced on the drinks as well as oilseed while customs duty on oilseed has been eliminated, he added.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that income tax relaxation to local mobile manufacturers and encouraging industry to import machinery on lower costs would help industrialisation, generation of taxes and jobs.
He said the relaxation granted to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been expanded to the province of Balochistan while ST on insecticides has been reduced and 20 billion rupees had been earmarked for fertiliser subsidy which would help agriculture sector if used properly.
Likewise, an additional four percent hike in the salary of government servants is a laudable move while 0.6 percent withholding tax on unregistered bank transactions has not gone down well with the business community.
The veteran business leader said that eighty percent of all the economic activity was generated by the private sector which needed to be facilitated. The exporters now view refunds an issue weighty than the energy crisis. He said that business community had to pay for lack of coordination and struggle between FBR and provincial tax authorities.