Islamabad:
The Minister of Finance, Muhammad Aurangzeb on Monday officially unveiled a mini budget of 36 billion rupees in the National Assembly and announced to exclude almost the entire population to disclose the source of income before buying a large house, a car or managing a bank account.
The limits set for the disclosure of the source of income before making large purchases would now target only car users greater than 1,600 cc, and people with more than one banal residential house in large cities and nearly two channel houses in other cities.
Indeed, this made the application of the president of the president of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), which also lowered the success rate to attract tax escapes to only 3.7%.
The FBR does not have the capacity to continue people once they made these purchases, so the government had planned to pre -empt the purchases.
Aurangzeb made these announcements while completing the budgetary debate in the National Assembly. With the liquidation speech, the official process for approval of the next budget and the fiscal measures for the financial year started which will end with the approval of the finance law probably on Thursday.
The Minister of Finance presented three other budgetary proposals before the National Assembly, which also targets the chicks of a day, to generate a total of RS36 billion additional taxes during the year 2025-26.
He proposed an increase in the tax rate on income from the debt part of the common funds issued to companies from 25% to 29%. The Minister said other business income was already taxed at the rate of 29%.
Aurangzeb said that the profit tax rate made by companies and businesses on public debt investments also increased from 15% to 20%. The government has also offered a poultry sector, where billions of rupees are made, said Aurangzeb.
“It is proposed that an RS10 federal excise duty (Fed) by a day old chick is imposed on the chicks of hatching, so that this sector can also contribute to the national chessboard,” he said. The government estimated that around 1.5 billion chicks are produced each year and it will receive 15 billion rupees by taxing a product which is a common diet of the poor and the rich.
The Minister said that these three additional measures would have no impact on industry and that the burden was transferred to the rich peoples and institutions.
The government proposed measures of 36 billion rupees instead of reducing the rate of sales tax proposed on the import of solar panels from 18% to 10% and the financing of an increase in wages of government employees to 10%.
Aurangzeb said that the government had presented a balanced budget for the year 2025-26. On the one hand, we have kept public spending under control, while, on the other hand, great importance was stressed in the increase in the tax base and its compliance, said the Minister of Finance.
Exclusion
Earlier, the government proposed that all these citizens are prohibited from buying major assets, if their declared wealth does not support these purchases. But the Minister of Finance announced the measure to radically tame this powers.
“On the Prime Minister’s instructions, this new law will not apply to the purchase of residential plots or houses of a value of up to 50 million rupees, commercial plots or properties of a value of up to 100 million rupees and vehicles of a value of up to 7 million rupees,” he said.
These limits are “too generous” and compromise the objective of linking purchases with white money, said a senior FBR official at The Express PK Press Club.
At the start of this year, the president of the FBR had informed the Standing Committee of the National Assembly which, due to almost no capacity of the FBR, to audit tax declarations, the success rate in the source survey after having made these purchases was only 3.7%.
The government has also agreed to relax the criteria for banning economic transactions such as buying a house, a conspiracy, a car, investments in securities and maintaining a bank account by those, whose declared assets do not support these purchases. He had proposed to prohibit all these transactions if the declared assets do not support these purchases.
The condition of ineligibility will only be applicable if the species of the bank account exceed 100 million rupees per year in all the bank accounts of a person. The condition of ineligibility for stock market investment would be applicable, if the cumulative investment in one year is greater than 50 million rupees.
One of the real concerns was that the FBR could end up exploiting people in the absence of a credible online platform to determine the eligibility of people to make these purchases. For this reason, the permanent finance committee of the National Assembly had linked the implementation of these difficult conditions with the efficiency of the online platform.
The Minister of Finance also announced to exempt a residential ownership owner of payment of up to 6.5% deduction tax at the time of the sale, if the property is sold after having kept it for at least 15 years.
He said the government would not tax post-retirement services in the form of switching and gratuity. But the annual pension of more than 10 million rupees will be taxed at the rate of 5%. On Prime Minister’s instructions, retirees over the age of 75 are exempt from all types of taxes, he added.
The government, in its attempt to promote affordable housing, will launch a 20 -year loan regime for the low -income segment, informed Aurangzeb. He said that individuals winning between 600,000 rupees and 1.2 million rupees per year will now be taxed at only 1% – against 2.5% offered in the budget.
He added that the 18%TPS offered on solar panel imports had been reduced to 10%, but said it would increase prices by only 4.6%.
Aurangzeb informed the Basse Chamber that on the Prime Minister’s special instructions, the existing FBR powers concerning tax fraud and the modifications made by the financing bill were examined again, under which tax fraud has been classified as cognizable and non -cognizable offenses.
“In cases involving up to 50 million rupees, the FBR will not be able to stop without a judicial mandate,” he said. In addition, the person can only be arrested if he is not part of the investigation despite three opinions; The accused tries to escape; or dabs the disc.
He said that the arrest approval will be given by a high-level committee of three FBR members, instead of an officer, and it will be necessary to present those arrested before the court of a special judge within 24 hours, “he said.
