Pharmaceutical traders observe strike against advance tax

SUKKUR: Distributors, wholesalers and retailers of pharmaceutical companies in Sukkur, Khairpur and other cities of Sindh observed a shutter-down strike against 0.5 percent advance tax collection on each invoice from filers and one percent from the non-filers.

The wholesalers and retailers of medicines said that the imposition of tax under Section-236H of the Income Tax Ordinance-2001 was totally unjustified because they had already been paying taxes under the law. They said the advance tax could ultimately affect the end users because the burden would be shifted on them. The traders demanded the withdrawal of the advance tax collection in a bid to provide relief to people. They said the entire pharmaceutical business in the country was worth Rs600 billion, claiming that the government had already been receiving tax of Rs3 billion.