Pakistan Observer
Published Date: Apr 13, 2017
Afrasiab suggests progressive Taxation imperative for strong economy
Progressive tax regime is imperative to strengthen national economy. Therefore, Awami National Party (ANP) would support a federal budget that may lessen the burden on common man and could create an enabling and fair business environment in the country.
Unfortunately, the present government has not been able to win the confidence of even the business community and the regulatory bodies in the country were being run with coercive colonial mindset instead of being facilitator for tarde and investment initiatives in the country. Senior politician and former senator AfrasiabKhattak said this while presenting ‘Shadow Budget for Financial Year 2017-18,on behalf of ANP at Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) here on Wednesday.
AfasiabKhattak said that federal governmenthas not fulfilled its constitutional obligation of presentingnew National Finance Commission (NFC) Award since 2014. Therefore, ANP demand the government that new NFC Award should be finalized with the consultation of all the stakeholders earliest as possible as at the present, right of the provinces was being denied by the federal government.
While presenting his political party’s stance on taxation system, he said that ANPwas in favor of direct and progressive taxation mechanisms. He said government must also address the black economy factor as huge black economy. He said the volume of black economy was huge and FATA was the prime example of such out of tax net economy. He said the announcement of FATA reforms was a welcome step but real issue is implementation that needed o ensured.
Afrasiab said that allocations regarding defence budget needed to be more transparent and spendingshould be increased for social sector, especially on the health and education. He said that ‘good and bad Taliban policy’ of the state was also hindering our economic growth and development. He said that the state had ignored the vision of the founding father of the country and its policies were resulted as a radicalized and intolerant society.
He said that the internalization of 18th amendment was our major concern as the capacity of the provinces has not been developed. Our export policies have also been a failure due to lack of vision at planning level and hence, we have lost compatibility in regional and global markets.
The senior leader of ANP said that planned urbanization should have been our major priority but our cities are expanding without any planning. He added further that the mega projects were being implemented in Punjab and Sindh, whereas smaller provinces are being ignored. Hence, the government should pay more attention to backward and under developed areas of the country.
Source: http://pakobserver.net/afrasiab-suggests-progressive-taxation-imperative-strong-economy/