Tarin hints towards negotiations with IMF regarding personal income tax

Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has hinted at holding fresh negotiations with the IMF on Personal Income Tax (PIT).

He was answering the queries with regard to the IMF conditions especially to implement draft PIT legislation by the end-February 2022.

The minister said that it is not true that the government agrees with all the demands of the IMF.

“The government will not withdraw all things under the PIT without further negotiations with the IMF”, he added.

Shaukat Tarin also said our team will inform the IMF that the revenues are increasing and the overall revenue position is stronger. 

Earlier, the Finance minister while addressing the audience on the occasion of the second computerized POS prize said that the government would have to substantially raise the tax to GDP ratio up to 20 per cent in order to achieve over 6 per cent growth.

Pakistan cannot achieve long-term growth with an existing low level of tax to GDP ratio of 10 per cent.

Pakistan has failed to achieve long term sustained growth due to three major reasons including low savings rate, gap between exports and imports and low agriculture productivity, he said. 

In addition the government would take action against those retailers who deducted General Sales Tax (GST) from customers but not deposit the deducted amount into the national kitty.

The Finance minister also said that only 2 million out of 220 million population are taxpayers. He said that there should be only two major taxes including Income Tax and GST. There is no short cut and there is a need to abolish other taxes like withholding tax and full and final taxes.