Debt and interest payments outstrip government’s revenue: Mian Zahid Hussain.

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On Monday, the Chairman of National Business Group Pakistan, President of Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum, All Karachi Industrial Alliance, and former provincial minister Mian Zahid Hussain said the payment of loans and interest had increased much more than the government’s income. The policymakers are desperate to increase the revenue, but he said that easing the burden on the existing taxpayers will cause harm instead of benefit.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that the government should target non-tax-paying sectors instead of increasing the burden on existing taxpayers.

Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that the government is increasing its expenditure instead of reducing it, and the burden is being shifted to the business community and people who are already worried and cornered.

Mian Zahid Hussain said that the business community is anxious and disturbed by reports of the imposition of various taxes in the upcoming budget. The business community should be taken into confidence instead of being kept in the dark.

He noted that the PTI government and former finance minister Miftah Ismail had tried to target the non-taxpaying sectors, but now it seems the policy will be abandoned. The current taxpayers will be squeezed, which will not increase tax revenue.

More taxes will decrease revenue because many businesses will close, and many remaining functional will start evading taxes.

The business leader said that advance taxation of any company’s future income is puzzling because who will be taxed?

Suc? measures will weaken taxpayers and tax defaulters more stable, making tax collection from them more difficult, so these steps should be carefully considered.

He said such measures would reduce the document economy’s size while increasing the undocumented economy’s size, which is already much larger than required.

Mian Zahid Hussain added that re-imposing a tax on bank transactions would also be a wrong decision, as this experiment had failed in the past and will fail again.

The document economy is also affected due to the ban on imports, but those making payments through handi are thriving. The economy needs to be removed from the ICU, not pushed to its deathbed.

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