All Answers: Re: [pakgrid] Withdrawal of tax exemption: Teachers, researchers berate decision

Wednesday, 19 June 2013

Re: [pakgrid] Withdrawal of tax exemption: Teachers, researchers berate decision

Dear All,

Alssalam O Alaikum,

I am thankful to Dr. Amir who have very rightly pointed out very important matter. Before the fear becomes true we should join our hands to raise our voice on proper platform (s). First thing, I will suggest to have written copy of the new planning to make sure that government has taken the decision of taking more taxes from Faculty Members and the researchers. Then we should write to the related committee in the parliament. We may have a delegation of senior professors to meet the prime ministers and relevant committees.

Take care.

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With kind regards,

Professor Dr. Abid Ali Minhas

Department of Computer Sciences, Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan

Head, Bahria University Wireless Research Center (BUWRC)

http://bci.edu.pk/cse/buwrc.html

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 7:38 PM, Amir Hayat amir.hayat@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Colleagues, AOA

I believe you are aware that the government is planning to remove the 75% income tax exemption from university research institutes employees.

Dr. Atta-ur-Rehman is the architect of current higher education policies that includes better salary packages and 75% tax exemption for faculty members of universities and research institutes. The main objective was to attract smart people in academia so that both education and research flourishes in Pakistan. The policies did work, today when you enter any good university, you find people who are highly educated, active in research and as good as their counterparts in industry.

While people in academia do NOT enjoy as many perks as their counterparts in government jobs and industry yet they do get a decent salary and 75% tax exemption that tries to compensate for the otherwise wide gap in the related perks privileges. If the government is planning to withdraw this tax exemption then time is not very far when they will ax the Tenure Track and similar other Systems and take the higher education sector to the bad old days.

The citizens of Pakistan had high hopes from PML(N) that they will adopt education friendly policies and will significantly increase the education budget. On the contrary the are adopting policies that will discourage people from joining education sector and encourage them to leave it and join either industry or universities in middle east and in West.

At a personal level I will urge the prime minister and the finance minister to withdraw this anti 'higher education research' policy change from the budget. If that does not happen in the next few days then the university teachers association should give a call for peaceful protests all over the country.

Regards,

Dr. Amir Hayat