Islamabad: Pakistan Peoples Party Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said on Friday that Imran Khan’s economic initiatives were benefiting only certain capitalist families of the country as the ‘selected’ Prime Minister on one hand gave amnesty to his capitalist friends to legalize nameless properties and on the other hand issued ordinance for expensive electricity.
In a statement issued from Media Cell Bilawal House, Bilawal said that in the ‘new Pakistan’, there was relief for tax evaders through amnesty schemes and inflation for the salaried class of taxpayers. Imran Khan’s change is only to reward the rich by snatching subsidies from the poor, he added.
Bilawal alleged that PML-N had given benefits to 135 rich families amounting up to Rs 43 billion during its tenure in government and the PTI government gave amnesty of more than Rs 20 billion to 56 rich families. He raised the question that those who gave amnesty schemes by claiming to bring the rich into the tax net should tell what they did for the common man.
Expressing concern, he said that more than 80 million ordinary Pakistanis who do not even come under the ambit of income tax are forced to pay up to 12.5 per cent advance income tax on mobile phones. “The common man is called a tax evader even after paying taxes in various ways,” he said.
Bilawal said that the gap between rich and poor was widening due to unequal economic policies in Pakistan. He said that the PPP was the only party which chalked out economic policies keeping in mind the situation of a common man.