KAMALIA: Finance Minister (FM) Muhammad Aurangzeb has said schools, universities and hospitals can be run by charity but not the country. “ All will have to be handed over to the private sector. Country can run only on taxes. Tax exemption has to be curtailed gradually. We are expanding tax net. People don’t want to come in the tax net of FBR due to harassment., he said this while addressing a press conference here. We are integrating other sectors to tax net too, he said adding 32000 retailers have been registered and tax will apply to them from July. There can be no such community or sector which we don’t integrate into tax net. First thing is that tax to GDP ratio is 9.5 percent, he remarked. It is not sustainable. We will have to bring tax to GDP to 13.5 percent. Enforcement, compliance and implementation of law which are already existing will have to be ensured. Tax authority will have to move forward. Sales tax and fraud will have to be abolished. Track and trace system was to move to sugar, fertilizer, cement and other sectors by starting from tobacco sector. But it was not implemented. What income was to come , could not come. Corruption will go down in FBR due to digitization and automation. The entire system runs on tax. GDP relies on tax. The sectors which were not paying tax we are bringing them to system. The others sectors too are being integrated in tax net.
