The meeting was participated by a large number of experts and representatives from various public as well private sector entities related to trade, business and economy. They highlighted various aspects of federal and provincial tax regimes and suggested that corrective measures were needed to improve the harmonisation between federal and provincial tax regimes.
The chairman of NA's Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue added further that government had taken a number of measures to improve tax regime and to eliminate double taxation. However, he said, still there was a lot of room to correct things, especially related to tax collection and to simplify the tax filing system further. He said, at present, the provinces were not tapping the huge potential of property tax fully as the tax that was being levied on property was far lesser than its actual value.
Qaiser Ahmad Shaikh said that the government had broadened the consultation to solicit budget recommendations and besides parliamentarians from all the political parties, other stakeholders including business community, academia and researchers were also made part of this consultation.
Zulfiqar Hussain, senior official from federal Board of Revenue (RBR) on the occasion said that the federal taxation authority was working with provinces to create more harmonised tax system whereas the efforts were being made at every level to safeguard the interest of the consumers. He said the FBR was open to receive and review all the recommendations from business community and other stakeholders.
Earlier, Dr Vaqar Ahmad, Deputy Executive Director SDPI, said that the report of the Tax Reform Commission in 2015 suggested that the tax co-ordination issues between federation and provinces could prevent any relief to the people and it could lead towards enhanced cost of doing business. He said that SDPI research has also shown that all provinces have different tax rates and most try to tax the same shrinking sources of income and wealth-thus leading to additional burden on already taxed sectors.
In order to harmonise the taxation system across provinces, Dr Vaqar said, "All provincial governments should take measures to consolidate the large number of sub-national taxes, reduce compliance costs through merger of provincial revenue authorities and introduce a unified tax return and central deposit of payments". Likewise, inter-governmental tax committee for dispute resolution and to integrate audit capacities of provincial tax authorities, he concluded.
Hammad Siddiqui, Country Director, Center for International Private Enterprise, while sharing his views said that the consultation on provincial tax systems was important to bring about constructive reforms. The representatives from various bodies related to trade and industry also shared their views on the occasion and suggested that tax regime should be reformed to facilitate legitimate tax payers in the country.-PR