ISLAMABAD: The imposition of regulatory duties by the government was questioned by international Monetary Fund (IMF) on Thursday.
IMF lamented the weak tax regime which was unable to unearth the full tax potential of the real estate sector, reported Express Tribune. They also voiced concern over the repeated extensions in income tax returns filing date and the low number of filings, said sources in Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
A team visiting from IMF under the Post-Programme Monitoring were on third day of visit regarding the talks with Pakistan. The Washington-based lender queried to the policy of imposing regulatory duty to generate revenues considering public opposition to this move.
Sources said the main concern for IMF was the impact these regulatory duties could have, and the team was apprised that regulatory duties were imposed twice in last five months by government which allowed additional revenue generation of Rs42 billion.
To rein in imports, the government had slammed regulatory duties on imports of both non-essential and essential items. However, on Thursday Commerce Ministry dissociated from the governments decision of imposing regulatory duty on essential items.
As imports swelled to $53 billion last financial year, the government originally had imposed regulatory duties on luxury items to discourage their imports.
