Red alarm in Pakistan. Accoridng to what reported by online portal leatherbiz.com, Pakistan Tanners Association invited its members to stop purchasing nationally-produced raw hides. This is their form of protest against the government’s decision to increase taxes on the segment’s commerce.
The reasons behind the discord
The writings of the new regulations relating to the fiscal year that started on July 1st, according to PTA’s accusations, did not take into account the requests to lower the tax impact on businesses. Moreover: they didn’t eliminate the ad-valorem duty on local raw hides and actually introduced an import tax for 17% of the value of imports.
The “raw-hides” strike
The choice of protest by PTA aims at forcing the government to take a few steps back to avoid the overstocking of warehouses (and consequent rotting of materials). This move, they believe, will cause the government to backtrack in order to avoid putting the entire industry, which employs about 1 million people, at risk.
