LAHORE
All Pakistan Anjuman-e-Tajiran’s general secretary, Naeem Mir has announced that APAT has attended the meeting with CM Punjab Shahbaz Sharif on his request but its plan of besieging FBR headquarters on 13th October 2015 is still intact. He said that chief minister has promised that the issue of withholding tax will be resolved by 10th of October and if he fulfills his commitment then traders need not moving to Islamabad for protest.
This announcement was made by him at a press conference at Lahore Press Club. Central president Ajmal Baloch, Irfan Iqbal, Mehmoob Sirki, Agha Adnan, Babar Butt, Pervaiz Baig, Ali Nusrat, Rana Zafar, Mian Mehmood, and others were also present.
He said the government had told the traders that the basic objective of the 0.6 percent withholding tax was to document the economy not the revenue generation. He said the parliamentarian themselves are no filers while the government hiding their mistakes and tax evasion under the carpet by blaming others as tax evaders. Out of 1174 parliamentarian, only 589 have filed their tax returns but they legislated the imposition of 0.6 percent withholding tax. He said if parliamentarians could not file tax returns then they did not have any right to tax others.
He said that traders would gather at Abapra Market on October 13 where from they will move in a rally towards FBR headquarters and besiege it and present their charter of demand. The protest camp will remain intact till the government accepts their demands. The traders’ leader said that the government cheated them by ignoring the commitment made with them regarding revoking of the withholding tax, account regularisation and others.