Cement dealers strike against withholding tax, supply stopped

Cement Dealers Association also once morest the withholding tax implemented by the government in the recent budget The strike and has stopped the supply of cement across the country.

Pakistan Cement Dealers Association Chairman Sajid Ali while talking to Independent Urdu said: ‘We have called a strike. No dealer has picked up goods from cement factories. The government should see how much revenue it is losing and the strike will continue until the government sits down with us and resolves this issue.’

Sajid Ali said that the implementation of the recent budget passed by the government from the assembly has started from July 1, 2024 across the country.

“Taxes in the budget were increased without seeing whether anyone can work with these taxes or not.”

He said: ‘We are distributors of cement, we collect cement from companies and supply it to the market, saving us 10, 8 or 12 rupees. We have to keep our office expenses, competitive with other brands within the money.

On the budget passed by the government, the FBR has increased the tax rate on non-filers from 1% to 2.5% under sub-section 236H of the Tax Ordinance, while the turnover tax is also applicable on retailers and dealers. has been.

The current price of cement is Rs 1450 per sack. Two decimal five percent means 37 rupees, now if I have earned only 10 rupees, how and from where can I give 37 rupees to FBR?’

He said that we have demanded the government to sit with us, we are all registered people and tax payers. As much as we raise cement, FBR knows everything, we say change the procedure, we are ready to pay more tax but no one is ready to listen to us.’

Chairman of Pakistan Cement Dealers Association Sajid Ali said that when the government was preparing the budget, we had sent recommendations on behalf of our association but they were not considered. The government itself says that the budget has been made by the IMF. What do they know regarding the facts on the ground?

According to him: ‘When the company prints the price on the bag and sends it, it does not have value addition, where are you going to tax the item that does not have value addition?’

On the other hand, economists believe that the loss of the new taxes imposed by the government, especially the withholding tax, will result in further inflation, where it will also cause tax evasion.

This section contains related reference points (Related Nodes field).

According to economist Dr. Fahad Ali, flour mills or cement industry is made by the government as its withholding tax agent, i.e. when it sells its products to wholesalers, dealers and distributors, it pays some tax on it in the form of income tax. They withhold, that is, these companies transfer this tax to the government.

He said that due to holding agent there are many problems and tax evasion also increases.

According to Dr. Fahad Ali, “Instead of making it easy for the people, the state has adopted a method that makes the manufacturing factory a withholding agent. They take advance income tax from the next party when they deliver their products.” Now it is an indirect method of collecting a direct tax.’

According to Dr. Fahad, the disadvantage is that the next party transfers the tax to the consumer, which will also result in inflation and increase the chances of tax evasion within the cement or flour sector. .

Economic analysts say that due to the new taxes, the burden on the salaried class has increased and their post-tax income has decreased.

“About 82 to 83 percent of our economy is household consumption, which includes food, drink, living, transportation, etc. When we reduce the income of the people by imposing taxes on them, it is obvious that they will spend their By reducing the needs, we will also reduce the buying and selling which will have an impact on our GDP and also on our growth rate.

Economist Qais Aslam while talking to Independent Urdu said that the government is taking taxes wherever the stake is, three types of taxes are being taken, which are income tax, sales tax and withholding tax. Those who are tax payers have low taxes and those who are defaulters have high taxes but who decides whether you are a tax payer or a non-tax payer.

“First pay 45% tax then apply to get it back if it doesn’t get back.”

He said that the new taxes are making a big difference because already there is 23 to 24 percent inflation and it will increase further.

It should be remembered that last month the federal government presented the budget 2024-25 in which the target of collecting 13 (trillion) trillion rupees was set as tax.