Muhammad Irshad Khan, chairman of the Tobacco Action Committee Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, rejected the recently imposed tobacco tax increases and demanded an immediate rollback, warning that sustained hikes are driving farmers, labourers and the local tobacco industry into a severe crisis. Speaking at a press conference at the National Press Club Islamabad alongside the committee’s general secretary Nawab Ali, Mohammad Shahid Khan and Iqbal Khan, he said the current policy is inflicting irreparable damage on the sector.<\/p>\n
Irshad Khan criticised the Federal Board of Revenue for extending taxes to tobacco exports, noting that taxing exports runs counter to global practice because increased exports bring essential foreign exchange. He urged the government to abolish export taxes, arguing that export levies undermine the entire supply chain and hurt both growers and processors.<\/p>\n
The committee highlighted that FBR has reduced the tax regime from three slabs to two, removing a lower slab that previously protected small local manufacturers. The original three-slab structure provided relatively lower rates for small industry while higher and medium rates applied to multinationals; the removal of the third slab, the speakers said, has left small enterprises exposed and at greater risk.<\/p>\n
With a large majority of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa households economically linked to tobacco cultivation, the delegates warned that the sector’s collapse would have wide social and economic consequences. They described recent FBR measures as heavy-handed and said tobacco growers\u2019 livelihoods, social events and local economies depend on the crop.<\/p>\n
The Tobacco Action Committee demanded immediate tax relief for growers and reinstatement of the small-industry slab to stabilise the market. They warned that unless the government reverses course and offers tangible relief, farmers across the province will be forced into intense protests and dharnas. The committee pledged to pursue all available means to defend growers\u2019 rights and said they will not yield to pressure until demands are met.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KP tobacco tax sparks crisis for farmers and industry; tobacco tax rollback demanded or protests planned, says Tobacco Action Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":18820,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}