LAHORE: Traders representatives announced on Thursday to besiege the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) headquarters in Islamabad, and to stage a sit-in from Oct 13 for an indefinite period to lodge protest over 0.6 per cent withholding tax being charged on all banking instruments.

Traders from all parts of the country would first assemble at Abpara Market, and then take out a procession up to the FBR headquarters, stage a sit-in, and present their demands to the authorities and continue their sit-in till the acceptance of their demands.

The announcement came from the All-Pakistan Anjuman-i-Tajiran (Khawaja Shafique group) at a press conference.

Group’s central secretary general Naeem Mir rejected the finance minister’s decision to extend period for another month to collect WHT at the ratio of 0.3pc till Oct 31 instead of reversing the original ratio of 0.6pc, saying the traders would gather in Islamabad to give a tough time to the government which had failed to address the genuine problems of the business community.

He said if the government still failed to accept their demands, the traders would give a call for a country-wide strike while sitting outside the FBR headquarters.

Mir said the traders would no more observe strikes and protests as four strikes and countrywide protests had failed to make any impact on the government.

Mir said after two weeks consultations with traders across the country, the association decided to go to Islamabad instead of holding another strike on Oct 7.

He said the finance minister had announced incentives package for traders, but no relief package or any amnesty policy was declared so far which implied that the authorities were not serious. Mir said it appeared that the FBR only wanted to collect up to Rs40 billion revenue from the WHT contrary to its previous claim of bringing more people into tax net for documentation of economy.

“If the FBR has met the target of bringing 600,000 non-tax filers into the tax net in three months of concession, why it has extended the date for filing of IT returns up to Oct 31,” Mir questioned. He said if any other group announced strike on Oct 7, they would not oppose it and would welcome other groups to join the protest in Islamabad for a collective cause.

Published in Dawn October 2nd, 2015

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