LAHORE: The All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (Aptma) has reiterated its support for the government’s objective of increasing documentation, curbing tax evasion and improving the tax-to-GDP ratio.
This was said by Chairperson of Aptma Kamran Arshad while addressing a press conference. He criticised remarks by the chairperson of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) regarding alleged revenue losses in the textile spinning sector in the absence of a video monitoring system in textile mills. He urged the FBR to reconsider the proposed installation of cameras in spinning units alone and instead implement a comprehensive national cotton traceability system across the entire value chain, beginning from the ginning stage.
Referring to alleged sales tax evasion of Rs500-700 billion on around 1.5 million cotton bales, he said this implied a value of roughly Rs1.8 million to Rs2.6 million per bale, which he described as commercially implausible. He added that such figures required urgent correction to avoid policy decisions based on mathematically inconsistent assumptions.
The Aptma chairperson appreciated the FBR’s broader drive to deploy technology and video analytics to improve compliance. He said the association was not opposed to documentation or monitoring; rather, it believed monitoring must begin where it can be most effective. Installing surveillance equipment at an intermediary stage such as spinning, he argued, would not address the source of undocumented cotton.He added that Pakistan could not achieve growth by placing additional burdens on already documented and compliant sectors.
