ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister’s Adviser on Finance Miftah Ismail has said that the government has decided to decrease income tax rates in upcoming budget for financial year 2018-19.
“In this budget, we won’t be introducing mega projects. We will leave the mega and big projects to the next government. We will only finance ongoing projects in the coming budget,” he said during an interview with a media outlet.
The government does not want to make it an election year budget. They did it in the last budget by introducing the highest ever development programme, including motorways, highways, power plants, etc.
Asked about the current state of the country’s economy, Miftah said fundamental things is the GDP growth. “In this financial year, our GDP will grow at a rate of close to 6 percent, and it will be a 10 years’ record. Fundamentally, economy is growing, private sector is expanding, business is growing, people are having more income. “This year we will add$20 billion to our economy.”
“Second major thing is inflation because it is sort of a tax on the poor. We had projected that this year inflation will be under 6 percent, but we are better off in the first 8 months of this year by keeping the inflation rate around 3.9 percent. We had done a depreciation of rupee in December, but we are okay with inflation figures. We are going good on these two key measures.”
About the government measures to bring back legal/illegal wealth of Pakistanis stashed in foreign banks and real estate businesses, Miftah informed: “We are coming up with a package on this. Supreme Court has formulated a committee with governor State Bank, secretary finance, chairman FBR etc. So when this committee finalises its report, we will come up with a package to bring back the money.”
