He was chairing high level maiden meeting of the resource mobilization committee here on Thursday. The meeting was attended by Minister for Industry, Commerce and Trade Mian Aslam Iqbal, Minister Health Dr Yasmin Rashid, President Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) Almas Hayder, Special Secretary Finance Ali Sherdil, Additional Secretary Ubaid-ur-Rehman, Chairman PRA Javed Ahmed, Advisor Faisal Rasheed, Abdur Rehman, and other official concerned.
Makhdoom Jawan Bakhat Hashim instructed all the departments to submit their resource mobilization proposals before April while new proposals should be presented instead of decade old suggestions which were never favourable to the public.
He said the government will also focus on non tax revenue measures along with tax measures. Furthermore, he instructed the Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) to issue the list of exempted services list instead of list of services on which GST on services was applied. This will increase the scope of the tax collection. He asked for the tax proposals for municipal services, non transferable property, and agriculture tax.
Jawan Bakhat said that the government will set aside all political motives and focus towards public friendly tax measures and take unfavourable decisions for public welfare.
Dr Yasmin Rashid stressed the need for more resources for provision of health facilities in future. She said the relief and subsidy should be given to needy people instead of provision of subsidies across the board
Aslam Iqbal suggested cutting down expenses of the government and its ministers' expenses first for which there was need to reduce the number of departments and unnecessary expansion of the public sector departments. He said the public confidence was required for imposition of new or expansion of existing taxes. Almas Hayder stressed the need for promotion of public private partnership, besides bringing the tax collection under one department instead of a number of departments for different taxes. He suggested withdrawal of subsidies across the board
The minister instructed the finance department to inform the committee about existing subsidies in the next meeting besides detail presentation on the existing and new proposed taxes. Furthermore, he also instructed the PRA and Excise and Taxation department to present their new tax proposals to the committee separately within three weeks.