I strongly request the government to immediately withdraw the transaction tax and disburse refunds.
KARACHI: I have been a regular taxpayer. As a salaried employee, income tax was regularly deducted on my pay cheques. For the financial year 2013-14, I had duly paid my taxes and my tax return and wealth statement were filed at the FBR under proper acknowledgement. I retired from service recently. Tax was also deducted from my retirement benefits. Against the retirement funds, I had issued two cheques to the National Savings Scheme for investment to receive a regular income to meet my kitchen expenses. I issued another cheque for car insurance. A huge amount was deducted by the bank at 0.6 per cent as per the recently introduced taxation on all the three transactions. How cruel is this system for a formerly salaried person? First, tax was deducted from my retirement benefits, and then, transaction tax was deducted and a third tax will be levied on the profit I will receive later from National Savings on account of regular income certificates. Although I did not file e-returns, the manual returns I submitted mentioned my CNIC and NTN. So, the FBR, before launching the onslaught, should have updated their records and advised the banks accordingly. When I tried filing e-returns, the FBR system told me that I am already registered, but I don’t know my username and password for which I requested the FBR helpdesk. I have not received a proper response for a week now and all telephone lines remain busy.
I strongly request the government to immediately withdraw the transaction tax and disburse refunds. It needs to allow enough time for citizens to file electronic tax returns. I wonder if our elected representatives were sleeping when such a harsh tax regime was being introduced in the current financial bill. The FBR should synchronise and update its records and find a way to avoid double or triple tax recovery. If prudence is not exercised, I foresee that depositors will be withdrawing their savings from banks, leading to the collapse of the banking system.
Khalilur Rehman Rijai
Published in The Express Tribune, July 18th, 2015.
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