WIPR & FPCCI Standing committee request government to resolve pending tax issues to help them survive financial losses

A meeting of the Warsi International Organization (WIO) Award Academy ®️ and Central Standing Committee on Media & Broadcasting of the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry and was held at the Karachi Federation House, chaired by Usama Khan Warsi, Chairman of Standing Committee and WIO President.

The Owners of the channels and PR companies were apprised of the problems faced by the government due to over-taxation and business concerns and expressed their concerns over the over-taxation and called on the government to formulate a simple policy for the media sector.

Senior Leader FPCCI & Business Community Mian Zahid Hussain, Vice President FPCCI Khurram Ijaz and Former Vice President FPCCI Saquib Fayyaz Magoon assured to provide solutions and cooperation at the government level, the Chief Guest Leader Representative of Sindh Government and Leader of Pakistan Peoples Party MPA Nida Khuro said in his statement at the provincial level, the government of Sindh assured cooperation with media houses and PR companies to solve the problems faced by them and also asked to formulate a policy for media companies at the provincial level, said Seema Taher A. Khan, Farieha Altaf, Tehmina Khaled, Abdul Ahad Hassan and others.

The participants pointed out that regardless of whether they are running PR or digital companies, or of event management and activations, businesses have been sorely affected, as in the case of the former two, celebrity clients are not being able to afford retainers with PR agencies as they are out of work themselves, while in the case of the latter no events are taking place. Considering that overheads are the same and employees have to be paid their monthly salaries, if the government does not intervene, they will have to start laying off people. The intervention required is to ensure the bare survival of these companies in these trying times. All allied jobs and professions such as vendors involved in making sets, florists, etc, are also now without jobs and livelihood opportunities because of these companies suffering financially.

There were four basic and reasonable demands of the participants:

• to remove the double taxation from the system that these companies are being subjected to;

• to remove the double taxation from the system that these companies are being subjected to;

• invoice discounting by SBP under a policy with zero collateral – they are willing to bear discounting cost as this will help ease their cash flow and finally, to create a purchase system to bring every vendor under the tax bracket, which will be of help to the government as well as to them.

• The government is providing help and support to other industries, and their request was to provide the same to them too. Some participants felt that not only is the government not giving this sector any consideration in taxes – they are paying 23 percent in taxes to the government, which is a huge amount — but is also offering no relief to them in any other way either, such as in utility bills.

Khuro assured the speakers that she would take these demands to the government and help in whatever way she could. Mian Zahid Hussain also offered his support. The chair informed that PREDA had also reached out to an advisor to the prime minister on finance and revenue, Hafeez Sheikh, and was hoping for a positive response from him.

Video Package - Source News One TV Channel News Cutting - Source: Pakistan Observer