PESHAWAR: Provincial Doctors Association has expressed concern over imposition of professional tax on its members by government and has decided to launch protest movement against what it calls the unjustifiable taxation.

In a statement, Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) said professional tax had been imposed on doctors a few years ago and a case regarding it was pending in Peshawar High Court. “The government has no right to deduct taxes from medics as the matter was subjudice,” it said.

It said that the deduction of tax at source from the salaries of doctors was based on mala fide intension as the management cadre doctors and those in basic medical sciences were not running clinics. It added that other professionals in the same grades paid Rs2,000 to Rs3,000 tax but a tax of Rs80,000 was imposed on doctors which was sheer injustice.

The statement said that most of the doctors performed 24 hours duty and deserved financial relief instead of subjecting them to battery of taxes.

PDA recalled that government exempted employees from professional tax during Covid-19 and they should be given relief as the entire province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was in a state of war. It threatened to launch a protest movement against the taxation after Eidul Fitr in case government failed to revise its decision.

In another press release, Dr Danyal Ahmad Yousafzai, the spokesperson for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Doctors Council, also expressed concern over heavy taxation and asked government to provide relief to doctors instead of taxing them.

He said that doctors were united to oppose taxation and would not hesitate to launch protest campaign soon after Eid.

Published in Dawn, March 26th, 2025