ISLAMABAD, May 26: The government is considering imposing a set of new taxation measures in the budget 2008-09 to raise additional revenue of Rs70 billion, Dawn has learnt.

These measures would mostly be indirect taxes (general sales tax, customs and federal excise) which are likely to be imposed on luxury items to achieve the proposed target of Rs1,215 billion for 2008-09.

A senior official in the finance ministry told Dawn that proposals had been made in consultations with relevant stakeholders by the tax officials, and were discussed in a meeting, headed by Finance Minister Naveed Qamar.

The source said new measures would also include administrative steps for plugging loopholes and reviewing the tax breaks announced during the last seven years for upper income groups.

However, some relief measures have also been proposed, particularly for industrial sector, in the shape of reduction of customs duty on raw material and machinery, and withdrawal of 15 per cent GST on computers.

Under the GST and federal excise duty, tax officials have proposed to generate a revenue of more than Rs35 billion from the proposed new taxation and administrative measures.

After these measures, the expected target of GST for 2008-09 is proposed at Rs475 billion, which means that the share of this consumption-based tax would increase tremendously.

According to the source, an adjustment of federal excise duty has been proposed on beverages, while status of special excise duty on imported goods is also expected to be reviewed.

Imposition of GST has also been proposed on tea packets at retail for end-consumers, instead of import.

Under the customs regime, more than 10 per cent additional duty on import of mobile phones has been proposed. The annual import bill of mobile phones is more than Rs66 billion.

The tax officials also proposed to levy additional taxation on import of cars above 1500cc, change in the rate of duty on diesel import to generate sufficient revenue.

It has also been proposed that special taxation measures would be announced on cars of above 1800cc to discourage import of luxury cars and also to further tighten import of used vehicles under the overseas Pakistanis scheme.

However, tax officials proposed import of 10 million duty-free energy saving bulbs. The total revenue generated from these measures would be Rs8 billion and with these measures would help achieve customs target of Rs167 billion for 2008-09.

The tax officials proposed new income tax measures to generate Rs20 billion. The proposed target for income tax would be Rs485 billion for 2008-09.

According to the source, the prominent decision would be the imposition of capital gains tax or capital value tax on stock exchanges. The new measures also include some new withholding taxes and revision in rates of some potential taxpayers, the source said.