ISLAMABAD, May 14: The government presented in the National Assembly on Friday a list of over a dozen private television channels that had not paid Rs2.73 billion in general sales tax (GST).
The channels and the amounts due are: Geo TV and Geo News (Rs1.68 billion), Aag TV (Rs95 million), ARY (Rs397.9 million), TV1 and News1 (Rs203.9 million), all channels of Express TV (Rs97.4 million), ATV (Rs4.7 million), Samaa TV (Rs18.65 million), Dhoom (Rs4.74 million), Indus TV (Rs149.77 million), MTV (Rs70.62 million), GTV (Rs14.96 million) and Hum and Masala TV (Rs5.79 million).
The information was provided by Labour Minister Syed Khurshid Shah in response to a call-attention notice by Pakistan Muslim League-Q’s Riaz Fatyana and Sheikh Waqas Akram, Pakistan People’s Party’s Syed Zafar Ali Shah and Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Dr Abdul Qadir Khanzada.
Sheikh Waqas said: “These electronic media barons should also be made accountable for such a glaring default while their channels are busy maligning politicians day in and day out.”
The notice invited the attention of the house towards “non-publication of names of those persons and departments against whom tax exceeding Rs10 million is outstanding and non-recovery of the amount from those defaulters”.
The minister said the Federal Board of Revenue was preparing a list of tax evaders and defaulters for presentation in the house.
He agreed with a suggestion to hold a debate on the issue.
He also agreed that the house should be informed about taxes paid by politicians and how much some of them deprived the national exchequer of.
Mr Shah said 83 individuals and organisations having defaulted on taxes exceeding Rs10 million had been identified.
Riaz Fatyana said that while the country was in the grip of a worst economic recession and a begging bowl was being taken to every forum, large entrepreneurs and politicians were evading huge amounts of taxes which, if collected, could easily relieve Pakistan of the resource crunch.
He called for putting a firm hand on the ‘big fishÂ’ who had gulped national resources by using unfair means and were not ready to pay taxes.
He said the matter should be put on the regular agenda of the house to get guidance on how to retrieve billions of rupees from usurpers.
The labour minister said the review and debate should cover tax evasion and plunder of national resources since 1988.
Source: Dawn
Date:5/15/2010
