MULTAN, Jan 23rd: Multan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) President Malik Asrar Ahmed Awan has called upon the government to expand the tax net and introduce single digit tax rate in the forthcoming budget as it would help in promoting the business activities and improving tax revenue.Awan said in a statement issued here today that government was working to announce a tax amnesty scheme and stressed that the scheme should be across the board.He appreciated the move of Miftah Ismail, Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs, for working to bring new taxpayers into the tax net and termed it a right move to improve the tax revenue instead of burdening the existing taxpayers. He reiterated his demand of payment of refunds with the government to alleviate the miseries of exporters by ending monetary crunch. He said that government has claimed to working on a new refunds policy through which the refunds would go to the accounts of persons concerned. He stressed that the government should establish Special Economic Zones (SEZs) under CPEC all over the Pakistan particularly in Multan, Bahawalpur, Dera Ghazi Khan and Muzaffargarh to promote investment and industrial activities in the country. He said that MCCI was promoting the interests of business community of the region and it would cooperate with it in resolving key issues of trade and industry of the Islamabad region.He said that the economy of Pakistan was facing many challenges due to falling exports, rising trade and current accounts deficits and reducing foreign exchange reserves.
