BoI promises easy tax payment for investors

Commits to establishing system to help boost economic growth

ISLAMABAD: The Board of Investment (BoI) said that the government’s focus was on tax reforms and it would take further steps to ease payment mechanisms for local and foreign investors.

The business environment can be improved further by giving consideration to 70 withholding provision of taxes, including clause (72-B), part IV second schedule of the Income Tax Ordinance, said BoI spokesperson Shah Jahan Shah.

According to Shah, an effective system of taxation helps in formalising the economy, encourages economic growth and shapes political cohesion between tiers of the government and results in increase in social sector service delivery.

He stressed that there was a dire need to reform the taxation regime particularly reducing the administrative burden on taxpayers through merging and addressing the multiplicity of taxes, tax payments and tax collecting agencies.

Shah said that in Pakistan, tax payment is increasingly taking more time, while administrative burden is also increasing.

He said the business community has demanded inexpensive supply of energy; electricity and gas for generating more business activity and growth in the country.

“Foreign investors are keen to invest in various sectors of the economy in the country,” said Shah.

The government is committed to providing a welcoming environment to aspiring foreign investors through global competitiveness for multinational companies (MNCs), he added. Shah added that a total of seven Special Economic Zone (SEZs) cells have been approved for facilitating investors through the one-window operation.

“SEZs investors would get the facility for plant and machinery import without customs duty in all four provinces of the country,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 24^th, 2017.

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