Business & tax experts
examine Punjab’s Budget 20-21, share future-focused recommendations
Leading representatives from the business community,
professional bodies and government sat together at a high-level virtual
post-budget seminar themed 'Economic Impact, Harmonisation and Future
Orientation' to examine the Punjab's provincial Budget 2020-21 and identified
economic opportunities and shared forward-thinking recommendations.
The online seminar was organised by ACCA (the
Association of Chartered Certified Accountants) with representatives from Lahore
Tax Bar Association (LTBA), Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), Institute of Cost
Management Accountants of Pakistan (ICMA Pakistan), and Lahore Chamber of
Commerce & Industry (LCCI).
Secretary Finance Punjab, Muhammad Abdullah Khan Sumbal,
was the Chief Guest at the event who shared the government's perspective and
answered the concerns shared by the business community and tax professionals
during a one-on-one question and answer session.
The seminar also included a highly interactive,
future-focused panel conversation moderated by the Member of ACCA's Global Tax
Forum, and the Chair ACCA MNP & Tax Committee, Omer Zaheer Meer FCCA,
featuring contributions from following senior Conversation Leaders: Javed
Ahmed, Tax Economist, Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA), Kashif Anwar, Chairman -
Standing Committee on Taxation, Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry
(LCCI), Khurram Shahbaz Butt, President, Lahore Tax Bar Association (LTBA), Sajjeed
Aslam, Head of ACCA Pakistan, and Zia-Ul-Mustafa, President, ICMA Pakistan
Emphasising on the need for the harmonisation of
federal, provincial taxes, ACCA’s head of Pakistan, Sajjeed Aslam stressed,
‘To make it easy for the services sector to keep
creating job opportunities for the country’s youth and attract foreign direct
investment, there’s an urgent need for policy makers to truly understand the
real needs of this sector and provinces need to introduce a mechanism to
facilitate the adjustment of tax refunds and bring harmonisation in tax rates
across all provinces.’
In his address, Muhammad Abdullah Khan Sumbal,
Secretary Finance Punjab, shared,
‘Despite the fact that working in the IMF regime
remains challenging that requires significant revenue generation and
expenditure management, the Punjab’s budget 2020-21 is business-friendly and
forward-thinking and contains inputs from all major stakeholders. The
provincial government is determined to support the private sector to enable
them to create new jobs, and consistent with Federal government’s efforts,
we’re heavily facilitating the construction sector. Considerable efforts are
being made to ensure ease of doing business in Punjab. We're the first province
to give zero rating to Public Private Partnerships showing our desire to
support the private sector. We're working towards broadening of sales tax base
and actively engaging with federal and provincial counterparts to ensure harmonisation
and cooperation.’
The Finance Secretary also shared that the government
feels Human Development (HD) is a more effective indicator compared to Economic
Growth (EG), therefore social development projects to remain its priority with
major investments in education and health.
He also shared his hope that the tax harmonisation
issue will be resolved within the first quarter of the current FY and we can
expect reaching some level of consensus between federation and provinces to
devise a workable framework accommodating different views.
Javed Ahmed shared that PRA is moving with pace toward
digitisation to facilitate taxpayers and is committedly working to remove
impediments.
The President of LTBA, Khurram Shahbaz questioned the
introduction of regressive measures like attaching credit facilities and
encouraged government to actively engage with professionals to ensure
progressive legislations.
Representing the business community, Kashif Anwar
shared the difficulties that businesses are facing and recommended
business-friendly initiatives with focus on providing more value to taxpayers.
Attendees appreciated the role of ACCA in
super-connecting all the stakeholders and facilitating an action-oriented
conversation to support policy makers to directly engage with the business
community and create a conducive environment for commercial activity and
corporate sector innovation.
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