Salaried class income tax contribution outpaces exporters, retailers

ISLAMABAD: The contribution of salaried class has outpaced exporters and retailers on account of tax payments with a wide margin, but still lobbying is underway to avoid slapping of normal tax regime for exporters in the next budget, it is learnt.

In the first seven months (July-Jan) of the current fiscal year, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) collected Rs 285 billion from the salaried class as compared to Rs 184 billion collected in the same period of the last financial year.

The FBR had made an unprecedented hike in different slabs of the salaried class so the overall collection went up by Rs 100 billion, increasing up to Rs 285 billion in the seven months of the current fiscal year.

The government introduced 1+1 tax rate for exporters, avoiding normal regime.

There was earlier only 1 percent tax charged on export earnings on the annual basis, however, in the budget for the fiscal year 2024-25, the government introduced a formula under which one percent tax would be charged while another 1 percent would be charged on incremental export proceeds.

Exporters contributed Rs 118 billion on account of payment as Income Tax during the first 7 months of the current fiscal year as compared to Rs 55 billion in the same period last year.

For retailers, the government introduced Tajir Dost Scheme which managed to fetch close to Rs 2 million. The FBR high-ups argued that the tax machinery created deterrence by jacking up tax rates on retailers/wholesalers under 236G and 236H, resulting in around 0.25 million more retailers filing income tax returns, and therefore, their tax contribution went up.

IMF review mission is due in Islamabad to kick-start parleys for the first review under $7 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) from Monday (tomorrow), so there is a need to bring all kinds of income under normal tax regime as it was done in the case of Agriculture Income Tax (AIT) whereby all four provinces enact legislations with the mandate to start collection from July 1, 2025.

Amid tax shortfall of over Rs 604 billion in the first eight months (July-Feb) of the current fiscal year, hectic lobbying is underway by exporters to avoid a normal tax regime.

Instead, they are demanding from the Prime Minister and the FBR chairman a special regime whereby only 1 percent tax is charged on export earnings.

Recently, Senator Anusha Rahman, who belongs to the ruling PMLN, raised the issue during the proceedings of the Senate panel on finance that some exporters held up their earnings abroad and then brought them in the country through IT remittances.