The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry has called upon the FBR to finalize the fixed tax schemes in consultation with traders’ leaders so that the new schemes should be acceptable to all categories of traders and help in improving the tax revenue of the country.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal, President and Rafat Farid Senior Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that FBR was reportedly working on fixed tax scheme with two slabs for small traders accordingly to which small retailers would pay annual tax of Rs.20,000 and Rs.40,000. However, they urged that FBR should take the leaders of trading community fully on board before finalizing these schemes to launch a consensus fixed tax regime.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that FBR should make categories of traders and impose fixed tax on them according to their tax paying ability. He said such a scheme would promote tax compliance in trading community and help in promoting tax compliance as well. He hoped that fixed tax regime would also minimize interaction between taxpayers and tax collectors and eliminate the chances of corruption. ICCI President said that Finance Bill 2019 has required manufacturers, importers, distributors and wholesalers to write CNIC numbers of purchasers on bills and also collect the amount exceeding Rs.50,000 through cheque. He said these measures have enhanced the problems for traders and urged that government should reconsider them. He said that government has also bound all commercial importers to write sale price on imported products while the value addition tax would be collected on retail price. He said that traders were not happy with such tax measures and emphasized that government should revise them. He said that under the new rules, shopkeepers and traders with sales exceeding Rs.10 million per annum will automatically become withholding tax agents and deduct 4.5 percent tax from the suppliers while they will also submit income tax returns after every six months. He said that these measures have placed extra load on traders as they will have to spend lot of time to complete the withholding tax requirements. He said that instead of putting more tax burden and additional requirements on traders, government should promote ease of doing business that would facilitate the growth of business activities.