LAHORE: The government hastily released a new proposed income tax ordinance which was rejected by traders because business activities do not resume due to the impact of COVID-19 and new taxes still burdened the public and businesses.

These views were expressed by panelists Pervaiz Hanif, Imran Afzal and Mr. Ashraf Bhatti during Jang’s economic session on the topic “Is the proposed income tax ordinance inevitable?” The session was moderated by Sikandar Lodhi.

Pervaiz Hanif said online commerce is growing due to the implications of COVID-19 which support commerce, business and create employment opportunities. However, bringing them into a tax net now will create problems for new businessmen.

The new ordinance should not be rushed through without consulting all stakeholders. He believed that threatening already financially struggling businesses and trading community with strict penalties and heavy fines in the ordinance was unfair.

He suggested getting all sectors of the tax net, including doctors, engineers, lawyers and others, to ease the tax system, as taxpayers saw themselves as trapped in relation to unregistered people.

Imran Afzal said the proposed income tax ordinance would be beneficial in the long run, but there was a need to raise awareness, educate about taxation and change allocation methods. He said no one was ready to pay taxes voluntarily, but steps towards the digitization of the economy would reduce tax evasion. He suggested making the tax system easy.

Ashraf Bhatti called the new tax ordinance an injustice to traders who were already suffering from the impact of COVID-19, rising unemployment and the economic crisis. He said traders have rejected the new ordinance when the government should take all stakeholders on board before passing such laws.

He said the economy has improved in official government figures, but on the ground it is quite different. The regular and salaried class will suffer an additional burden with the new taxes, leading to further tax evasion. He believed that the tax could not be collected by force, creating threats of fines and punishments.