Life without Coke
Pakistan’s Beverage Manufacturers have got a stay order from the Court preventing CBR from implementing the GoP decision to replace capacity tax imposed on 01 July 1990 and revert to the levy of central excise duty at the factory gate on actual manufacture as was once the practice. It may be remembered that it was during the first Ms Benazir Regime that the Beverage Manufacturers lobby had capacity tax implemented. To quote Seth Mohammad Aslam, then Member Provincial Assembly as well as owner of Leghari Beverages (Pvt) Ltd and Multan Beverages (Pvt) Ltd, from his letter of May 11, 1990 to the then Finance Minister, “Simple taxation system will ensure government revenues and will facilitate the tax payer also. It is requested that summer season is on, kindly survey the present installed capacity in the Industry and levy tax per operating valve. By adaptation of this simple system of taxation, the Government revenues should increase between 25 — 30% in the first year. This simple taxation system will not only enable the government to increase the revenue but will also relieve a large number of staff members from all the beverage factories and vigilance and intelligence agencies. I hope all these relieved staff members will be utilized on creative jobs i.e. finding new assessees for the government or assisting people to understand new forthcoming general sales tax”, unquote. In short, the Pakistan Beverage Manufacturers’ Association lobby maintained that they would be liable to pay Rs.1291.60 million, an addition of Rs.200 million which they were paying as “bribes”. Besides the fact that it is amazing for Pakistan entities of US companies to accept that they were in violation of the US “Foreign Corrupt Practices Act” or had knowledge thereof making them accessories, the fact that anyone would openly confirm the corruption within the system seems to have gone unnoticed in the laissez-faire attitude of GoP toward accountability.
