Senate’s body for resolving double taxation issue for importers
Senate Standing Committee on Commerce and Textile Industry asked the Adviser on Commerce and Textile Industry to work upon a mechanism to get rid of double and triple taxation being done on imports by businesses.
The meeting was held under the chairmanship of Senator Mirza Muhammad Afridi here at the Parliament House on Wednesday While discussing the impact of infrastructure by government of Sindh and Government of Punjab on importers/imports, the Committee asked the ministry of commerce to take the matter up in the cabinet and bring it into the notice of the Prime Minister and suggest to him to call a meeting of the four chief ministers along with representation of the ministry of Communications to sort out the matter of double taxation and report back to the Committee.
Leader of the House Syed Shibli Faraz proposed passing a resolution in the Senate reiterating the need to remove double taxation, asking for tax to be charged only once and a proper mechanism to deal with the issue. He was of the view that state should be making matters easier for investors and businesses instead of complicating them.
The Committee discussed at length The Trade Organisations (Amendment) Bill, 2019 moved by Senator Naseeb Ullah Bazai seeking amendment in Section 11(1) of the Trade Organisations Act, 2013 calling for increase in tenure of President FPCCI from one year to three years. Members of the Committee as well as the representatives from the chambers were of the view that the tenure should stay the same as the presidents who are committed can serve as good in one year as they will in any more number of years. Also, if the tenure is increased it will result in the turns of Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa coming after even longer number of years which will be injustice to the smaller provinces. In view of the majority opinion the mover withdrew the bill.
Regarding the steps taken to diversify exports of Pakistan in particular engineering goods, the Committee was told by the Adviser that Pakistan has exported tractors to Tanzania, Kenya and Mozambique and MoU with Angola has been signed for tractors. Orders of water dispensers and air conditioners are also being received from Europe. The Committee was told that there is good engineering goods export potential for Pakistan in the upcoming buying expo in China in November
