PROPERTY income is already heavily burdened by different federal, provincial and local bodies’ departments such as income tax by the federal government, property tax by provincial goverments and water tax, conservancy tax, etc., by local bodies.

If it is a commercial property, then property tax is extremely high, and if it is rented out, then the property tax is further increased.

If the property belongs to a corporate organisation, a professional tax is also charged by the provincial government. The owner has to incur maintenance and pay for the collection of rent and sometimes legal expenses and court fee to collect the rent from the tenant. Under the present circumstances, levy of sales tax on rent is totally illegal and uncalled for as rental income is already taxed over many times.

As such sales tax by the Sindh Revenue Board is nothing but transferring of all the hard-earned money of citizens to an incompetent government.

Nawab Ahmed

Karachi

Published in Dawn, October 6th , 2015

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