LARKANA:On the call of Anjuman Tajran-e-Pakistan, a shutter down strike was observed by traders and businessmen Saturday in Larkana against the federal government’s decision to hike taxes massively.
All major markets, including Shahi Bazaar, Resham Gali, Sarafa Bazaar, Jelus Bazaar, Kennedy Market, Drugs Market, and Electronic Market, remained completely shut whole day. The trading community members said that life had become very tough for the poor people after levying of taxes on almost everything.
They said that price hike had made the lives of poverty-stricken people very miserable as it had become very difficult for them to eat one time meal. They demanded withdrawal of all taxes on items of daily use or else, they warned, they will enlarge the scope of their protest.
Meanwhile, Abdul Ghaffar Shaikh, President, Larkana Chamber of Commerce and Industry, while talking to PPI exclusively, said that they had also supported the strike of trading community. He said condition of obtaining CNIC copy on purchase of material worth Rs 50,000 or above should be withdrawn because, he added, businessmen fear that it would be misused.
He said after detection of several money laundering cases in fake and benami account cases in which a poor pushcart vendor’s CNIC was used, the government must understand that businessmen would never give their CNIC copy to anyone who could not be relied upon.
He said: “We get one SIM after submitting our CNIC but in many cases more SIMS were issued on same CNIC copy.” He said sales tax could not be charged or collected locally as the government should impose it on manufactured commodities and manufacturers should be directed to pay. He said tax system had been complicated which should be simplified for everyone to understand and then more people would pay taxes. He said even beggars were paying indirect taxes since years; therefore, it was useless to say that people do not pay taxes.