Traders to besiege FBR headquarters on 13th

LAHORE
Traders announced besieging Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) headquarters on October 13 against imposition of 0.6 percent withholding tax on all banking transactions by the government in federal budget 2015.
All Pakistan Anjuman Tajran announced that it would support October 7 strike and will announce countrywide shutter down strike on October 13 for indefinite period if the government did not revoke the withholding tax and accept their charter of demand.
This announcement was made by the central leadership of All Pakistan Anjuman Tajran while addressing a press conference at Lahore Press Club on Thursday. Central president Ajmal Baloch, General Secretary Naeem Mir, Irfan Iqbal, Mehmoob Sirki, Agha Adnan, Babar Butt, Pervaiz Baig, Ali Nusrat, Rana Zafar, Mian Mehmood, and others were there.
The traders will 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. They said protest camp will remain intact till the government accepts their demands. The traders’ leaders said that the government cheated them by ignoring the commitment made with them regarding revoking of the withholding tax, account regularisation and others. They said the government was not sincere to resolve the issue and it did not give any package to the traders despite it promised with them in different meetings which were attended by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar too. They 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, but the facts are against the claim as the FBR witnessed historic shortfall in revenue generation in the first quarter of the fiscal year.
They 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. They said if parliamentarians could not file tax returns then they did not have any right to tax others.
Criticising Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, they said that he was only an accountant who just capable to create a balance sheet of accounts as ordered by the International Monetary Fund (IMF). They said imposition of 0.6 percent withholding tax was actually a robbery on widows, orphans, pensioners, savers and other general public.