The All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran on Saturday lashed out at the opposition political parties for opposing the voluntary tax compliance scheme announced by the government on January 1 for the benefit of traders.
Addressing a press conference on Thursday, All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran Secretary General Naeem Mir said that trades were deeply hurt by the remarks uttered by leaders of political parties including the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Mutahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaf (PTI) who called them tax thieves and owners of black money.
He said the taxation system of the country was so outdated and complex that the traders stayed away from entering into this system.
“Now the government has changed the team of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in a bid to correct the system which shows the commitment of Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) government and the traders are willing to enter into the tax net due to positive policies of the government,” Naeem added.
He requested the opposition parties not to involve traders in their politics, rather they should favour the government’s positive decisions.
He said the Anjuman was a non-political organisation so it should not be politicised.
He said with the scheme as many as 3.5 million traders across the country would get benefit and would enter into the system which would ultimately help in economic development of the country.
He requested leader of opposition in National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah to invite the traders community in the joint meeting of opposition parties to be held tomorrow to discuss the issue.
“The country’s 3.5 million traders were the main stakeholders in this scheme, so we would like to convince the opposition parties in favour of the Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2016,” he added.
Naeem said the government had prepared the scheme with consultation of the business community and the introduction of the scheme was totally in favour of traders.
He said the traders were excited to take advantage of the scheme as it would help them to enter into the tax net without any difficulty. Anjuman Tajiran Islamabad President Ajmal Baloch on the occasion said the scheme was specifically announced for the traders and it had nothing to do with big businessmen. He said the traders were reluctant to enter into the system due to corruption but now the government had offered an easy way to the traders to come into the tax net by paying a specific percentage.