Withholding tax on foreign produced TV content announced

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Finance Senator Ishaq Dar on Friday announced that withholding tax would be collected from all television channels airing foreign produced content.

The minister, in his budget speech, said the step was being taken to encourage locally produced plays and enable local production houses to compete with the foreign productions.

Furthermore, he said that any person making payment for a foreign produced advertisement would collect withholding tax at the rate of 20 per cent of the payment.

It may be mentioned that through Finance Act 2013, withholding tax was imposed on airing of foreign produced TV plays and serials only on landing rights channels, this tax will be collected from all TV channels airing such foreign content.