The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (ICCI) has called upon the government to take urgent measures to address the concerns of business community on tax measures taken in Federal Budget 2019-20 as the traders and industrialists of the entire country were up in protest against these anti-business tax measures.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal President, Rafat Farid Senior Vice President and Iftikhar Anwar Sethi Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry said that businessmen and traders of major cities of the country were considering to take to streets in protest against tax measures taken by the PTI government in its first annual budget as these measures have created additional problems for business sector and urged that government should revise such harsh tax measures to remove the concerns of business community.
Ahmed Hassan Moughal said that government has imposed 17 percent sales tax on registered buyers and 20 percent ST on unregistered buyers due to which business activities would badly suffer. He said government has also imposed condition of acquiring copy of CNIC from unregistered buyers and it was very difficult for businessmen to fulfill this condition. He emphasized that government in consultation with business leaders should find out a consensus solution of these problems to save businesses from further losses.
ICCI President said that government has also increased power and gas tariffs that have further enhanced the cost of doing business. He said that government has hiked the key interest rate due to which obtaining loans, especially by SMEs from banks has become very costly. He said that most of the industries were importing lot of raw material for manufacturing activities, but record depreciation in the value of rupee has made imports very expensive due to which production cost has increased significantly. He said it was the need of the hour to create conducive environment for businesses for quick revival of economy, but the tax measures taken in budget to meet the conditions of IMF have created more problems for business sector. He urged that government in consultation with business leaders should formulate a new strategy for removing hurdles for businesses and for creating an enabling environment for business sector so that business activities could flourish smoothly that would help in improving the economy.