This is with reference to the editorial ‘Shell-shocked’ (Aug 25), which, among other things, pointed out an anomaly which is a cause of great hardship to tenants, who normally fall in the category of the middle class segment of economy. In addition to the high rentals, they are forced to suffer a double whammy as they have to pay withholding tax on their electricity bills which they cannot adjust against their annual tax liability.
The issue is that for those who are not on the active taxpayers list (ATL), an amount of 7.5 per cent of the gross electricity bill is charged by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) through K-Electric (KE) if the bill exceeds Rs25,000 per month.
For the active taxpayers, there is no such deduction if the bill is issued in their name. The problem arises for those who are on ATL, but are living in rented premises where the bill is not issued in their name, but in the name of the house-owner. The tenants, therefore, have to pay the withholding tax without having any chance to have it adjusted against their annual liability.
The KE authorities insist that if the taxpayer wants the tax not to be charged, then the CNIC of the taxpayer should show the address of the rented premises, meaning thereby that every time someone changes the rented premises, he needs to change the address on the CNIC also, which is another way of saying that KE is not interested in having the matter sorted out.
The whole anomaly needs to be addressed immediately as the white-collar middle class is perhaps bearing the highest burden in national history on account of the prevailing hyper-inflation affecting every essential item for a citizen.
After all, the matter is not rocket science. All it needs is a sense of being practical and rational. A bit of coordination among government agencies is all that is needed.
MOIN MOHAJIR
KARACHI
