LAHORE: The Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FPCCI) on Sunday rejected the government’s plan of imposing additional taxes in the upcoming federal budget 2021-22 under the International Monetary Fund’s deal.

“The government and the IMF have reached a staff level agreement to revive the stalled $6 billion programme by disbursing $500 million as third tranche and assigning the task to the government to generate additional Rs700bn from the trade and industry through new taxes in the upcoming budget,” the FPCCI’s ruling group of businessmen panel Chairman Mian Anjum Nisar said in a press release.

Mr Anjum termed the frequent increase in electricity tariff and petroleum products’ prices along with burden of new taxes at the behest of the IMF a dangerous game for the economy of the country, as it would make the Pakistani products uncompetitive in the international market.

“The new taxation measures include increasing income tax burden of the salaried and business individuals and the corporate sector, as the government will also withdraw about Rs360bn worth of sales tax exemptions from next year while the sales tax is already high,” he explained.

He said during the first year of the IMF programme, the government had introduced over Rs735bn taxation measures to achieve the Rs5.5 trillion tax target but the steps did not help the government achieve its target despite putting additional burden on trade and industry.

Published in Dawn, March 1st, 2021