President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday said taxing agricultural income can help reduce poverty and unemployment
KARACHI (Pakistan Point News / Online - 25th September, 2019) President Pakistan Businessmen and Intellectuals Forum (PBIF), President All Karachi Industrial Alliance (AKIA), Senior Vice Chairman of the Businessmen Panel of FPCCI and former provincial minister, Mian Zahid Hussain on Wednesday said taxing agricultural income can help reduce poverty and unemployment.Collection of mere Rs2 billion by provinces from a sector representing 19.2 percent of the GDP is a joke therefore the responsibility should be given to FBR, he said.
Talking to the business community, the veteran business leader said that proper inclusion of agriculture sector in the tax net can help the government achieve R5.5 trillion tax target while reducing load on other sectors.The former minister noted that the industrial sector is 21 percent of the GDP but it is paying seventy percent taxes, the services sector is sixty percent of the GDP but it is paying almost thirty percent of the taxes while the agricultural sector is paying less than one percent of taxes.Mian Zahid Hussain said that the taxation system is not balanced leading to deindustrialization and protests by trading community and it can be improved by imposing a tax on the agriculture sector.
