The Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry Tuesday feared that calls for strikes would cause undue damage to the economic activities and hit the government efforts aimed at progress and prosperity of the country.
In a statement issued here, LCCI President Ijaz A Mumtaz said that the government would have to solve the issue through negotiation to deter the traders from more strikes. He said the country was well on the way of economic revival and not in a position to afford strikes of the traders who were backbone of the economy.
Ijaz A Mumtaz said that results of forceful implementation of any law were always bad, therefore, the government should take business community on board and find out a solution acceptable to all the stakeholders.
He said expansion of tax net was need of the hour but the government would have to bring the untaxed sectors into the tax net. He said that measures like imposition of withholding tax on bank transactions would not be doing any service to the economy as businessmen had already started to withdraw their capital from the banks and using parallel resources.
Ijaz A Mumtaz said though formation of a committee and cut in withholding tax was a step in right direction but the business community was yet not satisfied and wanted complete withdrawal of withholding tax.
He said the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry was with all the trade and industry associations against this imposition of tax on bank transactions. He said if tax on all bank transactions was imposed forcefully, it would not only hamper the trade and economic activities but would also tarnish the image of the government. The LCCI president said that a number of trade and industrial associations had approached to the LCCI and informed that imposition of tax on all banking transactions had caused unrest and put the interests of business community on stake.
