KARACHI: President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) Younus Muhammad Bashir has said that there was absolutely no solution to deal with issues emerging after the issuance of unrealistic property evaluation tables by FBR. Thus, these evaluation tables must be withdrawn whereas the system of collectors value for registration be accepted for Capital Gain Tax (CGT) as well.
He said that it was totally senseless to implement two rates to carry out evaluation of same property for Provincial and Federal taxation purposes creating hurdles in accounting procedures besides paving way for corrupt elements to benefit from the situation.
Younus Bashir said that uncertainty prevails in the entire real estate & construction sector, resulting in terribly affecting the performance of this particular sector during the last couple of months as it has been observed that transactions hardly took place during this period and the real estate and construction sector has come under tremendous pressure.
He feared that if situation goes on like this, the aftermaths will soon depict in key economic indicators as dozens of allied industries across Pakistan are likely to suffer badly due to poor decision-making.
He also said that on a special request by Acting President FPCCI and after considering the gravity of the situation, the Karachi Chamber decided to participate in a meeting held recently at Federation House to only discuss this issue arising after the issuance of Property Valuation Tables. “In the larger interest of the country, we felt it necessary to take part in FPCCI’s meeting to only discuss the issue of property valuation as the real estate sector of entire Pakistan is terribly suffering due to unwise decisions being imposed without thinking about the consequences”, he added.
He further noted that Valuation Tables publicized by FBR were on higher side and totally unrealistic as these tables have been finalized without taking the stakeholders on board and they also contain numerous legal flaws thus, the entire business community completely rejects these tables and urges the authority to revert to the previous system.