During the clearance of Hafeez Center Plaza, which was the victim of fire recently, it was revealed that there were crores of rupees in cash in the shops, which were burnt to ashes.
A total of 222 shops on the second, third and fourth floors out of 904 shops of Hafeez Center in Lahore were engulfed in fire on Sunday, and mobile phones, laptops, LCDs and other electronic items in these shops were burnt to ashes.
However, during the clearance of the plaza, it was revealed that crores of rupees in cash in the shops have also been burnt.
Muhammad Shehzad Bhatti, vice-president of the Hafeez Center Traders League, told the news agency: “Some traders had a lot of cash in their shops, and some had less. But the cash of many traders has been burnt. We can say that there were crores of rupees in these shops.
He added: “Many traders have reported that cash of Rs 20 to 30 lacs in the vaults of their shops has also been burnt. We have given all the victims a form in which they will enter the details of their burning items and cash, after which we will be able to estimate the damage which will take a day or two. We will then present our loss estimates to the media and relevant authorities.
Talking to the news agency, some traders said that usually, at least one lac rupees cash is present in every shop while lac of cash is always present in the vaults of big shops.
Why do merchants end up with so much money in stores?
In this regard, economist Qais Aslam told The news agency: ‘The PML-N government once passed a law which no longer exists. But according to this law, you have to pay a holding tax for bank transactions. You have to be a tax filer with zero point six percent. To avoid this tax, traders have become accustomed to keeping their money either in dollars or in cash and transacting money directly instead of with banks.
Why there was so much cash in shops ? For tax evasion.