K-Electric (KE) due to its electricity supply monopoly in Karachi, Karachi, is busy in a ‘white collar robbery’ of industry with recovery of four kinds of taxes, said Abubakar Usman,director of political and economic issues at Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) here.He said industrial electricity bills of November charge Rs70.66 perunit which is awful, unbearable and injustice.
He further added that KE has made this ‘fleecing’ calculation by recovering sales tax under Section 3 sub section 1, with dual sales taxunder Section 3 (1a), which is illegal and against the norms oftaxation.He said triplicate extra sales tax under section 3 (5), SRO 1222/2021 isalso charged in 2023 without adjustment of input, which is the right ofconsumers.
However, KE is applying this SRO 1222/2021: whether FBR andKE were sleeping for the last two years.PDP leader said income tax under section 235 should not be recovered asthe consumers had already submitted verified NTN and CNIC numbers.Recovering advance income tax from them is a burden, as assessed paystax before submitting a return.
He said now when100 percent recovery from is made from the filer,recovering advance tax is illegal, further WH Tax deducted at source isnot refunded to the consumer. All aggregate comes more than actual taxbut not refunded. He suggested stopping recovery double taxation whichis just a fleecing of industrial electricity consumers.He said the KE claims that energy moves the life but it is moving theindustrialist of megacity Karachi to the Arabian Sea to be drowned.
He said with Rs70.66 per unit tariff it is difficult to run theindustry. He said they are collecting four taxes: income tax, furthertax, extra tax and sales tax. They recover more than Rs22.30 per unitfor taxes, or 32 percent of the bill amount.He said this tremendous high tariff will collapse the export, resultingin loss to the current account.
He said this will also doom localindustry, increase joblessness, poverty and further push the foodinflation in Pakistan, which is already highest @ 34%. He demanded thatthe industrial electricity tariff should be made sustainable and freefrom these multiple taxations in the interest of the national economy.
