FBR guarantees PKR 50,000 monthly income tax exemptions

Islamabad: According to news reported on October 30, Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officials have denied claims that income tax exemptions on incomes up to PKR 50,000 per month are being discontinued.

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The board has promised that these exclusions would not change. It stressed that the FBR is in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) at the moment, and they want to be clear that these talks will not include new tax proposals or a review of taxation for those with low incomes.

The FBR officials made it clear that the tax exemption for people making PKR 50,000 per month will not alter, and the exemption for people making PKR 600,000 per year will not be taken away.

They stressed that no discussions or plans to remove this tax exemption are currently underway, and the World Bank (WB) has not recommended reducing the current PKR 600,000 threshold.

Moreover, the officials made it clear that taxes on revenue from the agricultural sector are outside the purview of the FBR and belong under the purview of provincial governments.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) met earlier today, and the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) decided to keep the key policy rate at 22%. An IMF study and other economic considerations were taken into consideration before making this conclusion.

According to a press release from the SBP, the MPC acknowledged that headline inflation had increased in September 2023 as expected. The central bank does, however, expect inflation to drop in October and to stay on a downward trend, especially in the second half of the fiscal year.

In a related development, the FBR surpassed the IMF’s tax collection goal for the first quarter of the current fiscal year, according to Interim Finance Minister Dr. Shamshad Akhtar.