Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, and All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain on Friday said the business community fully supports the resolve of the Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin to boost revenue through all possible measures.
The country will always remain dependent on loans unless revenue is increased forcing every government to adopt policies that are contrary to the national interests, he said.
Mian Zahid Hussain said that no serious initiative was taken over the last seventy years to improve the economy resulting in very frequent loans by the IMF and other lenders while the majority of loans were wasted due to weak oversight.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that IMF has stressed on the revenue generation in each and every agreement but our policymakers avoided reforms and preferred a shortcut of burdening masses by enhancing taxes fanning poverty and discontent.
Now further burdening masses is not an option as the indirect taxes have reached the highest point and the only way out is to document the economy and take other hard decisions, he observed.
The business leader said that further increase in petroleum levy, hike in electricity and gas tariff, increasing import duties etc. is no longer an option as it can flare-up the masses cornered by inflation.
He said that now the government has started imposing taxes on food items which is uncalled for and resulting in needless agitation.
Our tax system is outdated and full of contradiction, a person renting a property will have to pay tax but another renting land does not require to pay any tax, he said.
He said that the government has agreed with the IMF to undertake power sector reforms and sell bleeding state-run enterprises and now it cannot hide behind coronavirus to delay reforms as steps are needed to overcome Rs600 billion annual losses.
Mian Zahid Hussain noted that how can a country survive where the salaried class is the largest taxpayer after corporate sector while taxing agriculture sector, transport, wholesale and the retail sector has become a joke.