KARACHI: Ateequr Rehman, economic & financial analyst, said that the salaried class is overburdened with taxation in the new federal budget; especially, private employees are the main sufferer.
Furthermore, the taxes imposed on the salaried class in this budget are very harsh. The exemption should have been raised from Rs0.6 million to Rs1.2 million as per the challenges of the existing expenses, and increase from 35% to 45% should have been evaded.
Government has raised sales tax on almost every item, even unbelievably on surgical/ operation theatre equipment and NGOs serving deprived/ marginalised people for purchase of medical supplies, etc.
He said this should be considered and withdrawn from the budget. Tough impositions of tax measures in the budget have been taken. Federal government has increased rates of taxes in the budget for 2024-25 to generate higher revenues, said Ateeq. There is sales tax on stationary items; it should be exempted considering 22.5 million out-of-school children.
He said that energy tariffs for household are like turmoil; they are increasing without any break. Every month there is some extra charges in the name of fuel adjustment, as if there is an ignorance of agonies of the common man. He said it needs an urgent attention by the authorities.
The higher interest rate has created paucity of access to finance and heavy cost of credit. There is an urgent need to float “working capital loan” on easy terms or below 5% for startups, incubator, entrepreneur, low-income group, exporters, SMEs; etc., for establishing entrepreneurship of their own.
There are direct and indirect taxes thus creating economically difficult situation. There is a greater need of reducing indirect taxes and increasing direct taxes, hence decreasing the load of number of taxes/ sales tax on a common man added Ateeq.
No PTO visions are available in the budget of announcing ship breaking, warehousing/ processing units, logistics, dairy, livestock, and fishery as industry. We badly need renovation and repair of our existing industrial areas and establishment of industrial/ economic zones with one window operation, he concluded.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2024
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