How does more taxes cut prices, asks JI chief

Jamaat-e-Islami chief Hafiz Naeemur Rehman on Sunday wondered as to where in the world did imposing additional taxes reduced prices as he criticised the budget proposed by the federal government for the next fiscal year.

“The biggest attack was on the salaried class in the budget,” he said during a news conference at the JI’s Idara Noor-e-Haq headquarters in Karachi.

The JI chief maintained that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had made tall claims in his speech a day earlier that Pakistan was rescued from defaulting on its debts under the leadership of PPP Co-Chairman Asif Ali Zardari and others, as well as that the next International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) bailout package would be the country’s last one.

“The prime minister is representing a ‘fake’ government. Whatever the IMF dictated was incorporated in the budget,” he added.

Naeem lamented the “declining” exports of the country and its rampant inflation rate.

The JI chief noted that there had been no taxes imposed on the agricultural landlords.

“These [agricultural] landlords have been sucking the country’s blood for the last 75 years. They have a feudal and capitalist mindset. Those who were the slaves of the British took possession of the land [after Partition] and are now in parliament.”

Naeem said the salaried class accounted for Rs360 billion in taxes against agricultural landlords, who had paid only Rs4 billion.

The JI chief claimed that those who had purchased properties in Dubai had no money trail to show for them.

He continued that property worth $12.5 billion had been bought in Dubai in the last two years.

“The poor man is already crushed under the weight of inflation and additional taxes have been imposed on the middle class.”