KHARAN: Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi Saturday said the recently announced ‘revolutionary tax reforms’ would bring in record resources to the national economy and lead the country to self-dependence and those, criticizing the initiative, should first make public their last year’s tax details.
Addressing a public gathering after inaugurating Khuzdar-Shahdadkot road and launching work on Kharan-Yakmach road here, the prime minister said the tax reforms would make the people join course of national development by paying taxes and proving their patriotism.
He was accompanied by federal ministers Lt. Gereal (retd) Abdul Qadir Baloch, Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo, Hafiz Abdul Karim and Chairman National Highway Authority who also briefed the prime minister on importance and scope of the projects.
“There is no room for criticism on it… I question them as what they are criticizing for –over reduction of tax rates?” he asked the opponents.
The prime minister who earlier unveiled the plaques of two mega projects worth Rs 25 billion along with Chief Minister Mir Abdul Quddus Bizenjo and the federal ministers, said the critics would meet their political fate if they tell the masses that they were opposing the initiative of reducing tax rates and making people prove their patriotism by supporting the government in running the state affairs.
He said previous governments always increased tax rates but it was the PML-N government that reduced these by more than the half. It has been experimented worldwide that people do not pay 36 percent taxes and when resourceful people evade taxes, the poor have to bear the brunt in the form of indirect taxation on daily use commodities.
He said the tax reforms were meant to shift burden of indirect taxes from the poor to those who were not paying taxes despite earning millions.
Apprising the gathering about his Friday’s visit to Kabul, the prime minister said that they discussed thoroughly Afghan issue with local leadership and told them that no country desired peace in Afghanistan more than Pakistan.
He said military solution failed to resolve issue during the last thirty years. The solution lied only in dialogue among all Afghan stakeholders and Pakistan would extend all out support to the process as an obligation.
He hoped that if Afghan side also showed the sincerity like Pakistan, peace could be restored in that country.
