PBC, FBR discuss budget

KARACHI: A Pakistan Business Council (PBC) delegation met Tariq Pasha, SAPM Revenue, Ashfaq Tola, Minister of State for Revenue and Chairman of the Reforms and Resource Mobilisation Committee and FBR members IR Policy and Customs to discuss the budget proposals for 2023-24, a statement said on Tuesday.

During the meeting, the key recommendations included treating payment of inter-corporate dividends as a non-taxable event, restoration of group loss relief to promote consolidation, scale and competitiveness, and create parity in taxation of gains on disposal for shares in non-listed and private and companies with gains on sale of real estate.

PBC also recommended to allow off set of any tax due with assessed refunds, extend the period available for offset of minimum tax against future profits for a period of five years, reduce incidence of withholding taxes and advance taxes on the formal sector, whilst increasing the same on non-filters dealing in property and on their utility bills.

It was pointed out that there was a potential of raising tax revenue from wholesale, retail, and real estate of Rs747 billion, stem loss of Rs488 billion loss of revenue from under invoicing of imports from just four countries, raise property taxes of Rs400 billion, and agriculture taxes by Rs375 billion.

On under invoicing, PBC urged the sharing of import data to provide a challenges to valuations, agree to electronic data interchange with key trading partners, allow manufacturers a seat on the committee setting ITP values, and obtain verification of valuation data by brand owners on import of their brands by others.