HYDERABAD, Jan 19: The All-Pakistan Organisation of Small Traders and Cottage Industries has threatened to launch a country-wide protest campaign if the proposed amendments to the income tax self-assessment scheme are not shelved.

Speaking at a news conference at the local press club on Sunday, the provincial president of the traders’ organisation, Mashooq Ali Jatoi, said that the amendments to the scheme would open up a floodgate of corruption.

He said that after the failure of the General Sales Tax scheme, the government was trying to bring about amendments to the IT self-assessment system on the pretext of documentation of economy.

He said that the exercise of survey, conducted in 2001, which was aimed at the documentation of economy, had also failed because there was a flight of capital from the country and the economic activities had come to a halt.

He said that taxes, including the GST, which had been levied at the insistence of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and other donors, should be withdrawn and a fixed development tax should be levied at the rate of 0.75 per cent as agreed earlier.

He called for revamping the Board of Revenue and improving the law and order situation, which, he added, had deteriorated during the past six months.

Criticizing the government for faling to check rising incidents of kidnapping for ransom, robberies and murders, he said that bandits were ruling over the interior of Sindh.

He said that incidents of murders, lawlessness, extortion and car snatchings were also on the rise in Karachi, which had affected the economic activity in the province.

He urged the government to adopt radical measures to end unemployment in the country, besides stopping the American Federal Bureau of Investigation from interfering in the internal affairs of Pakistan.

He said that the organization was strongly opposed to the construction of the Kalabagh dam and the Thal canal.

Those, who accompanied him during the press conference, included the organization’s general secretary, Abdul Qayoom Qureshi and its provincial vice president, Babu Ramzan Arain.