Islamabad (Agencies): Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Shaukat Tarin on Thursday said that the government had proposed to withdraw tax exemptions of Rs 343 billion out of which Rs 272 billion taxes were refundable or adjustable, while the actual new taxes were only Rs 71 billion out of which Rs 69 billion taxes were about luxury items.
Addressing a joint press conference flanked by Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Farrukh Habib, the finance minister said that the government has proposed only Rs 2 billion tax exemptions on the items that can be related to the common man which would have a very negligible impact on inflation.
Tarin said that Rs 112 billion tax exemptions on machinery, and Rs 160 billion tax exemptions on pharma sector would totally be refundable or adjustable.
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had asked us to impose Rs 700 billion new taxes but we defended not to impose taxes on a number of food and other essential items and brought it down to Rs 343 billion,” he said.
The finance minister said that in the past unjustified taxes were exempted on various items that were being withdrawn.
Earlier, Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin presented the Finance (Supplementary) Bill 2021 and State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) Amendment Bill 2021 in the National Assembly (NA) amid protest from the opposition benches.
