The federal government has launched a mobile application for its fixed tax scheme, aimed at bringing small traders and shopkeepers into the tax net (Geo News).
Minister of State for Finance Bilal Azhar Kayani, speaking alongside Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb in Islamabad, said the app had been developed in consultation with traders and that trader leaders had been involved in preparing it. It would help shopkeepers outside the tax net become filers.
The scheme for small shop owners was introduced in June.
Consultation is the notable element, because it is what previous attempts lacked. Successive governments have tried to document the retail sector — through the Tajir Dost scheme and its predecessors — and each has met organised resistance from trader associations capable of shutting down markets. Registrations have consistently fallen far short of targets.
The stakes are visible in the arithmetic the government keeps citing elsewhere. The petroleum levy raised a record Rs1.567 trillion last year precisely because it is collected at a handful of points and cannot be avoided; the retail sector is the opposite case, which is why the burden keeps landing on fuel and on the salaried class. Jamaat-e-Islami’s emir made that comparison this week, saying salaried taxpayers had paid around Rs700 billion.
The National Assembly’s commerce committee has separately demanded an assessment of a trade deficit that widened more than 25 per cent in July, and the government is seeking an Exchange Stabilisation Facility from the US Treasury.
No registration target or timeline was announced for the app.
