KARACHI – Imposition of THE Reformed General Sales Tax (RGST) will be like killing the goose which lays the golden eggs and it is also like releasing the genie in the shape of public wrath which will devour the government and would bring an anarchy of such proportion that may cause wider damage to the State. The PPP-led government at Islamabad is not ignorant of this fact and knows the devastating effects that the imposition of RGST would have on the already poor masses of the country.For Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and the PPP government the bell of impending danger is constantly ringing but for reasons unknown or over-confidence in ones own ability to run the government, the rulers have gone deaf and could hardly hear the bells of doom that will struck the national economy within hours of RGST.
The finance managers of the government are repeatedly criticising the opponents of RGST and demanding that the opponents give an alternate solution to raise about Rs160 billion needed to bridge the gap between resources and expenditure.
And when some of well-know economists give them the recipe to avoid levying of RGST, the government refused to accept it.
It seems that the government is aware that at the end of the road, a total financial disaster is awaiting for them. But the rulers seem to have decided to destroy themselves rather than to go the way the economists have suggested.
Dr. Shahid Hassan Siddiqui, an expert on economy, has suggested a way out for the PPP government to stay away from committing hara-kiri by taking an unpopular decision, which will destroy party and the country.
Opposing the RGST, Dr. Hassan said that there is a better and easier way to kill two birds without using a stone. He said the government should immediately announce bringing into tax net all income from every source over Rs 300,000 per year without any exemption.
If this measure is taken both in urban and rural areas of the country, he said just one step could yield government revenue of Rs750 billion per year which is far bigger than the projected revenue that the government is hoping out of the RGST imposition – Nation
