Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called upon the government to announce printing of all tax forms in Urdu in the forthcoming budget and make them simple to facilitate the taxpayers. 
 

Muzzamil Hussain Sabri President, Muhammad Shakeel Munir Senior Vice President and Muhammad Ashfaq Hussain Chatha Vice President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that the current tax return forms in English are so complicated and lengthy that it is very difficult for a common taxpayer to easily understand and fill them correctly. 
 

They said the difficult tax return forms are one of the main reasons of low tax-to-GDP ratio in the country. They said the completion of tax return forms is a challenging job, especially for small businesses as they cannot afford to hire the services of tax experts to fill the tax returns. They stressed that government should accord high priority to simplifying tax forms and taxation procedures that will help in improving the tax revenue of the country.
 

They said according to a World Bank study, a taxpayer in Pakistan has to spend 560 hours on dealing with tax matters against the global average of only 267 hours. It shows that taxpayers have to spend considerable time for tax compliance in our country and government should take measures to make taxation system simple and easy for enhancing tax compliance. 
 

They said the prevailing tax system is also unfair and unjust as it provides many tax exemptions and concessions to certain sectors of the economy while overburdens business and industry due to which business entities have to share heavy tax burden. They said that tax exemptions and concessions of Rs.342 billion were provided to the independent power producers during 2012-13 which were almost 46 percent of the total income tax revenue.  
 

They urged that in the new budget, government should take tangible initiatives to simplify the tax return forms and print them in Urdu. Government should also develop a fair taxation system that should bring every taxable income into the tax net and remove all exemptions/concessions that will contribute positively to broadening the tax net and improving the tax revenue.