KARACHI: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been urged that federal excise duty (FED) on soft drinks should be reduced to 9 percent from present 11.5 percent.
In the budget proposals 2017-18, the FBR was informed that in the year 2011-12 budget speech, Finance Minister had announced the strategy for gradually reduction in the number of items from the list of FED especially the food & beverage sector should be continued to attract new FDI investments in Pakistan.
In the first step, FED on soft drinks was reduced from 12 percent to 6% in the Federal Budget 2011-2012 but no further reduction is made in budget 2012-2013 to continue this elimination process.
In budget 2013-14, the FED rate was increased to 9 percent and this rate was continued till 2014-2015 instead of downward reduction as agreed with industry, the FED rate further increased to 10.5 percent from July 01, 2015 and 11.5 percent from July 2016.
