‘Course of action to be announced soon’: Small traders will never accept fixed monthly sales tax: OSTCI

KARACHI: Small traders on Sunday condemned the fixed monthly sales tax on retail businesses and termed the taxation measure “governmental robbery”.

“An additional Rs 6000 fixed sales tax on retail businesses attached to monthly electricity bills is unjust,” said Mehmood Hamid, the president of the Organisation of Small Traders and Cottage Industry (OSTCI), at a meeting of the organisation.

The federal coalition government of 12 parties has already crippled the country’s economy and trade by allowing a huge increase in the prices of petrol and diesel, he said.

The soaring food inflation has badly hurt the people, Mehmood Hamid said. “Now the government has tricked traders into fixed sales tax of Rs 6000 a month.”

He also dubbed the tax as an “extreme injustice”.

He said that the retailers will “never accept” the tax that has come in addition to 12 others already payable by the traders. “Sales tax is already a part of the electricity bills,” he said.

The OSTCI chief also described the fixed tax as a “stab in the back of the economy” by the federal coalition government, claiming that there is no justification for such taxation. He added that the OSTCI will soon announce its course of action in this regard.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022