Media watch: Tax and tax collection

Local media highlights and analyses the effects of a flood tax and collection of other taxes.

Media watch is a daily round-up of key articles featured on news websites, hand-picked by The Express Tribune web staff.

Flood Tax for Sindh - pros and cons

The government must bear in mind that the levy of a national carbon tax was similarly successfully challenged in the courts as its revenue was to be earmarked not for environment protection, but for budgetary support. And while in the case of the carbon tax a renaming did work, yet in the case of a Sindh-specific flood tax, this may not be possible especially considering that the governments of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa have already indicated their refusal to impose a flood tax. (brecorder.com)

Taxing measures

This disagreement on imposing a flood tax in Sindh highlights a countrywide problem: no one is really willing to pay further taxes, and many who have qualms cannot really be blamed. Rising inflation and the extra cost of living have rendered many people incapable of contributing any more money. The idea of a flood surcharge of 10 percent on income tax has been shot down as the salaried class cannot afford any more dents in their income. (dailytimes.com.pk)

Five per cent relief surcharge to be imposed on tax payers

Spokesperson Federal Board of Revenue Israr Rauf told a private a news channel on Wednesday that the surcharge will be imposed on people who were paying taxes on their income. “There would not be any new tax in the form of flood tax it would rather be imposed as a surcharge to help the flood affectees”, he said. (dawn.com)

The tax hunt

A countrywide action is being launched against 1300 companies in an attempt to recover Rs50 billion in unpaid dues. This action is at least five years overdue in many cases as that is how long most of the targeted companies have been blacklisted – but they have continued to trade and even opened new companies and subsidiaries which are presumably also tax defaulters. Their evasion of payment was well-enough known to the tax authorities but they had taken no conclusive action until now. (thenews.com.pk)