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

Saturday, 22 June 2013

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

Hi,

There are people earning same amount and paying full Tax. So I think no need to make this an issue.

Regards,

Imran

On Wed, Jun 19, 2013 at 5:30 PM, Waqar Saleem <wsaleem@gmail.com> wrote:

Thank you for bringing this to our notice. Is there something we can do about this?

Best regards,

Waqar

On Mon, Jun 17, 2013 at 9:38 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