Deadlock persists between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and theMinistry of Finance over the issue of tax collection. Both sides had failedto agree on setting the tax target and increasing electricity and gastariffs.
Sources further disclosed that the government had refused to accept thecondition set by the international money lending organisation to levyadditional taxes ranging between Rs140 billion and Rs200 billion.
Similarly, it has been learnt that differences persist over thegovernment’s plan to offer tax exemption to different sectors in theupcoming national budget. Sources divulged that Pakistan did not want totake dictation from the Fund on increasing tax collection as it insists ithas its own way of increasing the amount.
FBR has told the IMF that it wants to increase the collection of taxesthrough ‘Enforcement’ and ‘Administration’.
On May 28, the government had rejected International Monetary Fund’s (IMF)proposal to increase taxes on the salaried class.
The 24News TV channel had learnt from its sources that the Fund hadsuggested to the FBR to increase the amount of tax deducted from thesalaries of people every year from Rs129 billion to Rs300 billion, but thelatter rejected it, saying it was difficult to implement.
Sources further disclosed that the FBR had also rejected IMF’s suggestionto set the overall tax target at Rs5, 963 billion, and conveyed to theinternational money lending organisation that the Rs5, 700 billion could bea reasonable target.
Read Top Stories
Earlier, on May 25, 24 News had reported that the deadlock between the IMFteam and Pakistan economic gurus seemed to persist as the internationalmoney-lender refused to let go of its condition of levying additional taxeson Pakistani people.
According to sources, the IMF has given a target to the Federal Board ofRevenue to levy additional taxes and set Rs6,000 billion collection target.
The lending agency has asked the government to introduce extra taxes in theupcoming budget of fiscal 2021/22.
The sources said the government had termed Rs6,000 billion tax targetunrealistic pleading to the lender that it was hard to levy additionaltariffs on already economically stressed people.
Source:link
