Islamabad: The government has finalised a mini-budget with monetary adjustments and expense reduction worth PKR 600 billion following a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), news sources reported. The proposed budget will cut the Public Sector Development Programme by PKR 200 billion and raise taxes to put more money into the national exchequer.
According to the details, the government has chosen to restore PKR 350 billion in taxes for the current fiscal year, as opposed to the IMF’s demand of PKR 700 billion. The administration has chosen to maintain the tax exemption on food, fertiliser, and pesticides. Other provisions contained in the mini-budget include the following:
Imposition of regulatory duty on the import of electric vehicles to reduce the import burden
Increase across the board tariff on complete built unit (CBU) vehicles of all types, however, the imposition of federal excise duty on Semi Knocked Down (SKD) and Complete Knocked Down (CKD) units is still under consideration.
Imposition of tax on 525 non-essential import items
Furthermore, it was reported that the final text of the budget bill is now in the law division and will be presented to the National Assembly when the terms of the bill have been vetted. It is worth noting that the new budget would undo the government’s economic stimulus plan, which was announced in the main budget in June of this year.
Nauman Ahmad is an imaginative Pisces whose love for literature and nature is unparalleled. When he's not reading or hiking, he's sleeping and eating, which gives him plenty of energy for his next adventure.
