KARACHI: The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) said on Saturday that the desired tax-to-GDP ratio must be achieved by broadening the tax base and simplifying the taxation system rather than further squeezing the already taxed.

The only pragmatic approach to achieve a tax-to-GDP ratio of 15 per cent in the next five years is to add 1.5 to two million new taxpayers in the tax net, FPCCI President Atif Ikram Sheikh said in a statement.

The tax and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) reforms should not be done without consultation with relevant stakeholders, he said.

Such efforts have been grossly unsuccessful in the past and the successive governments res­orted to regressive and anti-business steps of further increasing the taxes on existing filers, he added.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2024