ISLAMABAD:The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) on Tuesday urged the government to introduce single digit GST in the upcoming budget that would bring down the production cost, provide good relief to the common man in prices and facilitate the better growth of business activities.
ICCI President Muhammad Shakeel Munir, in a statement, claimed that 17 percent General Sales Tax (GST) was quite high which was a major cause of high inflation and high cost of doing business.
He said the sales tax rate was 5 percent in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and Taiwan; 7 percent in Singapore; and 8 percent in Iran and Sri Lanka, while it was 17 percent in Pakistan, which should be brought down to less than 10 percent in order to facilitate the growth of trade and industrial activities, and reduce inflation for providing relief to the general public.
The IICI president said high tax rates in Pakistan were a major hurdle in promoting tax culture and bringing more people into the tax net. The government should focus on rationalization of taxes to make them affordable for taxpayers that would be helpful in promoting tax compliance and enhancing tax revenue of the country, he added.
He said the current tax system was quite complicated and difficult, which was not conducive to promote business activities.
He urged the government for developing a simplified tax system that should facilitate the growth of business and investment activities, besides increasing the tax revenue.
The number of taxes should also be minimized to ease the problems of taxpayers, he added.