Govt to announce tax relief of Rs 80bn in next budget: Rana Afzal

ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Finance, Rana Muhammad Afzal Tuesday said that the government would announce in the up coming budget 2018-19, a tax relief of around Rs 80 billion for salaried class of the country.

From July 1, 2018, the people who have income of less than Rs 100,000 per month, will be exempted from any tax, while tax ratio for those who have monthly income of over Rs 100,000 per month is also being cut significantly, Rana Afzaal said while speaking in Senate Standing Committee on Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs here.

Discussing on the Money Bill to further to emend the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 (The Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2018), the Minister of State said due to rational measures taken by the government, the total revenues of Federal Board of Revenues (FBR) had increased from around Rs 2000 billion in 2013 to more than Rs 4000 billion now.

The meeting of the committee was presided over by Senator Farooq H. Naik, and was attended by its members Senators Saud Aziz, Saleem Mandviwala, Ayesha Raza Farooq, Musadiq Malik, Khanzada Khan, Dilawar Khan, Aurangzeb Khan, and Muhammad Akram.

Appreciating the FBR's move to reschedule the tax regime, Musadiq Malik said this decision would specially give relief to the salaried class who were poor or belonging to the lower middle class and would get a reasonable relief.

He said the the effect of Rs 80 billion in term of relief was a very minor one if we wee the total revenues of more than Rs 4000.

Member inland revenue FBR, Dr Muhammad Iqbal informed that the tax payers whose income was less than Rs 100,000 per month and were tax filers would remain among the tax filers but would be declared as zero rated.

Meanwhile the meeting also considering the Money Bill to provide for declaration and repatriation of assets and income held outside Pakistan (The Foreign Assets (Declaration and Repatriation) Bill, 2018).

While discussing the Bill, the meeting was informed that all those who remit more than US $100,000 per year from abroad would have to prove the source of their income.

The committee also considered and discussed in detail money bill to provide for voluntary declaration of domestic assets in Pakistan (The Voluntary Declaration of Domestic Assets Bill, 2018), and the Money Bill to further to amend the protection of economic reforms Act, 1992 (The Protection of Economic Reforms (Amendment) Bill, 2018).

The committee members unanimously gave a go ahead to these bills, however they proposed some amendments to these bills for further consideration.