Lahore - A two-day ‘National Tax Justice Youth Film Festival’ was held at an institute to sensitise youth to injustice and exploitation in the tax system.
The objective of the festival was to create awareness among university students to encourage ‘direct tax’ culture in the country instead of burdening the poor segments of the country with additional taxes like sales tax, value-added tax, income tax and petroleum levies.
The Chanan Development Association (CDA) in collaboration with Oxfam Pakistan, Sustainable Social Development Organisation (SSDO) and Punjab Youth Council (PYC) “9th National Youth Peace Festival (NYPF) 2018” in which 500 young people from across the country participated.
The university students from all over the country participated in film festival and 19 short-films and documentaries were shortlisted to be screened for contest with content theme to depict and highlight tax-related miseries of the people and misuse of tax collection on part of elite leadership. The first half of the event on Tuesday included “National Tax Justice Youth Film Festival” in which short films of the young people from across Pakistan were screened.
Programme Director Oxfam Pakistan Adeel Qaiser said, “Pro-poor tax laws and legislation along with a fair tax system can only lead to better Pakistan. It is the duty of every citizen of Pakistan to pay their fair share of tax as it is the duty of the government to make sure that the tax rupees collected is spent in a way that benefits the poor.” Provincial Health Minister Punjab Dr Yasmeen Rashid, MNA Shaista Pervaiz Malik, MPAs Sania Aashiq and Uzma Kardar lauded the organisers of the events.
