Expensive services

The most recent rise in prices has wreaked havoc on our lives. I am a stay-at-home mom and a freelance content creator. A lot of my work revolves around use of data and internet services. Whatever I manage to earn from freelancing is meagre and doesn’t even make me eligible for any kind of income taxes, and yet I continue to pay a 15 per cent advance tax every time I reload Rs100 in my phone. This excludes the 19.5 per cent sales tax, which takes the total tax burden to 34.5 per cent.

My questions are: why am I being forced to pay these taxes when I don’t fall in the tax bracket? And why are the relevant authorities and policymakers not making efforts to reduce the rate of these taxes? Cell phones and internet services are not luxuries, and it is extremely unfair to exorbitantly tax over 70 percent of the population that barely gets to scrape everyday expenses. The new government is requested to look into this matter.

Gulshan Danish

Karachi