ISLAMABAD: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) urged the government to bring non-filers into the tax net, during the third round of talks that were held on Monday.
An IMF delegation, led by Harald Finger, which comprises officials from the funds’ Lending Policy Division, conducted talks with officials from the Ministry of Finance and Federal Board of Revenue (FBR). According to local media, sources said that the FBR officials briefed the IMF delegation over Pakistan tax revenue system.
In previous meeting, IMF mission termed Pakistan’s current economic condition ‘unsatisfactory’. The IMF delegation is also expected to hold meeting with the governor of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).
Low number of taxpayers is one of the major issue that the economy of Pakistan is facing, which is also crippled with energy shortage and dwindling forex reserves. Earlier, Federal Minister for Finance Asad Umer revealed that only 0.7 million persons are actual tax payers.
“I have another bad news for you, there are only 1.3 million filers, of which only around 0.7 million actually pay taxes,” said Umar, in an interview to a private news channel.
Meanwhile in the previous talks with the IMF, the government rejected the US-based lender’s request of providing it China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) contract details.
