Islamabad, Mar 16(ANI): The Pakistan Government has introduced a 120-billion-rupee 'mini-budget' through presidential ordinances, envisaging 53 billion rupees of additional taxes on income, imports, agriculture and domestic sales of export-oriented items.
The government also announced a set of expenditure control measures- including cuts in the development programme, a ban on fresh recruitments and purchase of durable goods and a 50 per cent reduction in non-salary expenditures- to save about 67 billion rupees, the Dawn reports.
The new tax measures were introduced with immediate effect for the remaining period of the current fiscal year (till June 30) through separate presidential ordinances, in a bid to meet some of the conditionalities of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to restrict the current year's fiscal deficit below 5.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic product (GDP).
The government had assured the IMF last week that it would take major policy measures within a few days to remain engaged for a wider financial support from other lending agencies like the World Bank and Asian Development Bank.
Under the ordinances, the government will collect 20-billion-rupee additional revenue through a 15 per cent surcharge on income tax, 25 billion rupees through the withdrawal of sales tax exemptions and zero ratings, 6 billion rupees through a 2.5 per cent special excise duty on imports and 2 billion rupees through an increase in applicable tax on sugar.
The major opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-N rejected the ordinances immediately after they were issued, and described the move as a violation of the Constitution.
Criticising the taxation measures, PML-N spokesman Ahsan Iqbal said that only the National Assembly could impose new taxes, but the government had established a new precedent of violating the Constitution by imposing a 'mini-budget' through ordinances.
The Pakistan People's Party-led federal government has been moving back and forth on the introduction of new tax measures through parliamentary approval, the issuance of statutory regulatory orders and the achievement of political consensus on reforms measures, but always backtracked because of stiff resistance from opposition parties and coalition partners in this regard. (ANI)
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