KARACHI: In line with the announcement of the federal budget for financial year 2021-22, residential consumers who are non-tax filers and have electricity bills of over Rs25,000 will be subject to a withholding tax of 7.5 per cent.

A spokesperson for K-Electric said that the tax was effective from July 1 and is applicable across Pakistan including KE’s serviced territory.

He said that the withholding tax was only applicable on individuals showing as non-filers on the taxpayers’ list maintained by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

“Residential consumers will be subject to a 7.5pc withholding tax if their electricity bill is Rs25,000 or more for any month in the fiscal year,” he added.

He said that industrial and commercial consumers with a monthly bill between Rs500 and Rs20,000 would be subject to a withholding tax of 10pc of the amount.

“For bills exceeding Rs20,000, commercial consumers will have to pay 12pc of the total amount with an additional fixed charge of Rs1,950, whereas industrial consumers will have to pay 5pc of the total amount with the same fixed charges,” he added.

The KE spokesperson claimed that the current changes had been applied by the federal government on consumers of all distribution companies across Pakistan including those in Karachi and its adjoining areas. “We understand that consumers need additional information about the process. Therefore, we have educated our staff across our complete network of 30 customer care centres across Karachi to facilitate customers during this period. We urge our customers to ensure that they are included in the FBR’s active taxpayer’s list in order to claim this withholding tax in their annual returns.”

He said that residential consumers were also encouraged to visit their nearest KE customer care centre in order to update their CNIC on their consumer bills.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2021