ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister Ishaq Dar will present the federal budget for fiscal year 2017-18 in parliament on Friday (today) with total outlay of Rs 4850 billion.
The government is expected to set the revenue collection target for the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) at Rs 3,950 billion.
Customs duty and tariff is expected to be changed on more than 700 items. While customs duty, sales tax and federal excise duty (FED) on imported items, especially cosmetics, perfumes, electronics goods and appliances such as refrigerators, air conditioned, microwave ovens, washing machines, juicers, LCD TVs, imported food items milk powder, chocolates, cheese, animal foods, tins food is expected to be increased from 2 to 5 percent.
The FBR has proposed 0.2 increase in withholding tax rates for non-filers. Duty and taxes on mobile phones and internet connections are also proposed to be increased. The tax rates on export of cement and steel are also proposed to be increased.
The democratic government of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is all set to present its fifth and last Federal Budget with an outlay of over Rs4.8 trillion for Fiscal Year 2017-18 before the Parliament on 26th May (Friday).
A special package for former and agriculture sector would be announced. Loans for agriculture sector will also be increased. Subsidy on energy for poor people also would be increased. A special budget session of the parliament (National Assembly and Senate) has already been summoned by President Mamnoon Hussain. Finance Minister Muhammad Ishaq Dar would lay budget proposals for the Financial Year 2017-18 for the fifth and last time in the house. These budget proposals would first be presented for approval before the Federal Cabinet in its special session.
The upcoming national budget envisages revival of economy, further improving economic growth, overcoming challenges at economic front particularly resolving the energy crisis, maintain fiscal discipline and reducing non-development expenditures and providing relief to the masses besides promoting investment for job creation and people friendly Polices for the socio economic prosperity of the country. In this year budget focus would be made on development of energy, infrastructure and human resources sectors. Finance Ministry sources told Customs today that China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) projects would be prioritized to make the project operationalised as soon as possible.
The budget speech of the Finance Minister would be broadcast and telecast live from the Parliament House on the Friday (tomorrow) afternoon “Overcoming the energy crisis, stabilization of economy, cutting down the non-development expenditures, enhancing productivity through new growth strategies, further reducing fiscal deficit and inflation, enhancing revenue collection and welfare of the people would be featured as priorities in the upcoming budget,” the sources added The Budget is likely to enhance allocations for social safety net for providing maximum relief to vulnerable segment of the society. It would also focus on social sector development and revenue enhancement measures, besides reforms would also be introduced for improving governance and boosting private sector investment for the prosperity of the country.
