SUKKUR, Dec 22: President of the All Sukkur Small Traders and Cottage Industries Haji Muhammad Haroon Memon has alleged that the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) of Sukkur was harassing small traders by issuing them notices for payment of sales tax.

He said that small traders would not pay the tax unless their demands were met. Their basic demand was that the authorities concerned should collect the sales tax from those traders whose turn over was over Rs50 million a year, he said.

If the sales tax department did not accept this demand, traders would not pay the tax because Sukkur city did not come under the cadre in which FBR was trying to bring it in forcibly.

In 1990, the tax department declared that the tax would be recovered on the turnover of Rs5 million a year, but the same could not be implemented. Now in the sales tax policy of 2010, the government even after a lapse of 20 years desired to collect the tax on the turnover of Rs5 million a year. This limit was not acceptable to traders because due to inflation sales of Rs5 million was achievable by every small businessman; turnover limit should be Rs50 million.He observed this at a meeting with Chief Commissioner of Income Tax of Sukkur Muhammad Riaz on Wednesday. A delegation of the office-bearers of different trade organisations accompanied him.

He said that small traders could not maintain books of accounts, adding that they were already paying different types of taxes to the government.

He said that the government collected the sales tax from the institutions that produced consumer items, the general tax from local distributors and then the general sales tax from consumers. Despite this, efforts were also being made to put pressure on small traders for payment of the tax.

Representatives of different trade organisations who expressed reservations about the tax included Asif Ali Ghouri, Haji Muhammad Sabir, Muhammad Tahir Khan, Khawaja Jalil Ahmed, Muhammad Fayaz Khan, Moulana Usman Faizi, Sabir Kaptan and Syed Mehmood Ali.