These hurried and unprepared changes are certainly not helping the people
KARACHI: Citizens have been facing great difficulty after the announcement of this year’s federal budget and tax schemes. One moment they are liable to paying hefty taxes on assets such as vehicles, and the next moment those taxes are repealed (much to the relief of the common taxpayer). The government and the FBR have attempted to launch online portals and directories, where citizens can view all their assets and tax history. However, it was discovered that the portal had numerous mistakes, as the authorities were unable to deal with the large amounts of data. Now it seems that the portal for online registration and payment of sales taxes is not working due to mismanagement of the data. Why did the government not decide to test their portals and ensure their data is correct before diving into this mess? Even if it was taking time, it would have been better to launch something they are sure of next year, rather than confuse the citizens and make the process more difficult for them while risking a breach of security of citizens’ data. These hurried and unprepared changes are certainly not helping the people.
Ishrat Aijaz
Published in The Express Tribune, July 13th, 2019.
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