ZAHEER ABBASI

ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Dr Miftah Ismail will wind up the ongoing debate on the budget for next fiscal year in the National Assembly today (Friday), sources in the Finance Ministry told Business Recorder.

Sources said the winding up speech of Miftah Ismail has been finalized and he may mention the government’s decision to provide relief in income tax to individual taxpayers and subsequent recommendations by the Senate Standing Committee on Finance for increase in slabs, which will provide Rs20 billion revenue to the government.

The finance minister is also expected to respond to the opposition criticism to the budget and may consider some of their proposals.

An official said that winding up speech by the finance minister will be followed by demands/grants of the ministries and divisions as well as supplementary grants.

The opposition will move cut motions against the demands of grants for each ministry and division and highlight their dismal performance and will request rejection of their demands of grants. The cut motions as usual are expected to be rejected by the majority votes. The Senate also forwarded 144 recommendations to the National Assembly for incorporating the Finance Bill 2018 including increase in the tax rates for individuals, reduction in customs duty on the import of soybean oil and increase in petroleum development levy, which may be increased to 25 percent over the existing rates.

The income tax rates for individuals have been proposed to be increased to 10 percent for Rs1,200,000 to Rs2,400,000 as well as 15 percent for Rs2,400,000 to Rs4,800,000 and 25 percent for those earning Rs4,800,000 and above annually and various others.