Finance Minister, Shaukat Tarin, has said that the government will aim to increase revenue with the upcoming budget without increasing taxation and burdening the electricity consumers with higher tariffs.
The Finance Minister made the statement while announcing that the new budget will be announced in June for the fiscal year 2021-2022.
During a virtual press conference, Tarin said, “The government would neither increase electricity tariff nor burden existing taxpayers. It would achieve an increase in tax revenue of Rs. 1 trillion through alternative means to reach close to the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) requirement of Rs. 5.9 trillion in tax revenue.”
He said that the upcoming budget would also focus on reducing the circular debt and do so through other means without increasing electricity tariffs.
He also commended the prime minister’s decision of not going to complete lockdown despite raging COVID-19 and said that it saved the economy and focused on some targeted sectors, including housing, agriculture, and especially exports industry, resulting in economic stabilization.
Sharing his plan, Tarin said that broadening of tax-base will be done through the use of technology and innovative methods. The retail sector will be incentivized to bring it into the tax net, and the real estate sector will also be given leniency in terms of self-assessment, he said.
At the same time, the government will ensure third-party audits and jail sentences for those evading taxes.
Regarding the growth-focused part of the budget, he said that planning was almost completed in twelve sectors and will be submitted to the prime minister before the end of this month.
He said that since Pakistan was no longer a food surplus but a food deficit country, price stability would be among the priorities in the new budget.
In the short run, the government will move against hoarders and increase food supply through strategic reserves. In the medium to long term, cold storage and commodity warehouses will be built, and middlemen will be removed while farmers will be encouraged to sell their products by themselves in the markets.
The Finance Minister also said that Pakistan would try to get some leniency from the IMF in terms of an amnesty scheme for the Real Estate Sector, which would be expiring in June 2021.
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