Falak Sher
MARDAN
Provincial general secretary of the Markaz- Tanzeem-e-Tajiran Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and president of the Mardan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Zahir Shah has completely rejected the businessman-friendly tax imposed on small traders by the government, calling it a businessman-hostile tax and economic exploitation of business community.
Talking to the Media Zahir Shah added that today there will be a complete shutter down strike from Karachi to Gwadar and in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Zahir Shah warned that the government should immediately withdraw the decision on the cruel anti-trader tax or else the protest will continue indefinitely.
Zahir Shah said that the people and the business community are already bearing the unbearable burden of dozens of cruel taxes but the imported finance minister and the government, instead of reducing their royal expenses, are burdening small businessmen with more taxes, which we do not accept in any way.
Zahir Shah argued that the business community is the protection of the oppressed class under the burden of illegal taxes because the businessmen who are already tax filers in the list of FBR and paying billions of rupees in taxes every year have also been burdened which is further exploitation of the economic class.
The MCCI president added that the businessmen across the country are united against the cruel measures for their rights and are in touch with small business organizations across the province. He argued that this country is running on the taxes of the business community and the people, and the business community is happily paying taxes to the government, but instead of the interests and prosperity of the people and the business community, the tax money is being spent on government ministers and bureaucratic luxuries.
He pointed out that small traders and people are already burdened by immense taxes, they do not have the power to pay thousands of millions of rupees in taxes annually, this is forcing them to commit suicide and economic exploitation. He rejected the new business-friendly tax scheme and demanded the government to immediately withdraw this cruel decision. “Instead of the drawing room, the government should solve such decisions with the representatives of the business community through consultation and all the agreements made with the IPPs of the previous periods should be canceled and they should be held strictly accountable”,
He argued. Zahir Shah demanded that the illegal taxes should be removed from electricity bills and transparency should be brought in the implementation and system of taxes. Zahir Shah appealed to the business community to make today’s strike a complete success and warned the government to refrain from imposing new cruel taxes and give relief to the people and businessmen in all taxes, otherwise the scope of the shutter down strike and the series of protests will be expanded further.
