ISLAMABAD - The federal government is likely to announce mini budget through Presidential Ordinance in next week to revive International Monetary Fund (IMF) and to bridge the tax collection shortfall in first six months of the current fiscal year. An official of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) informed that the government is likely to announce mini budget through Presidential Ordinance in next week. Finance Minister Ishaq dar had already announced that the federal government would be shortly imposing flood levy on the affluent and a significant gain tax on banks’ foreign exchange earnings to ramp up revenue. According to the official, the government may impose a flood levy ranging from one to three percent on all imports. Meanwhile, a windfall tax on lofty profits in the banking sector is also under consideration. The government is bifurcating the profits earned by the banks in the form of alleged currency manipulation with their normal income to impose the additional tax. He said that the government has faced tax collection shortfall in December mainly due to the court’s decision to withdraw super tax on affluent class, which was supposed to generate massive revenue. The mini budget is one of the conditions of the IMF to revive the loan programme. The Fund is asking for increasing taxes, withdrawing power subsidy and free and market driven exchange rate. The mini budget would also help in bridging the tax collection shortfall. The FBR has missed the tax collection target for december by a wide margin. The FBR has collected Rs740 billion in december as against the assigned target of Rs 965 billion making shortfall of Rs265 billion. The FBR has collected Rs. 3428 billion in the first six months against Rs. 2929 billion collected in the corresponding period of last year, depicting an increase of 17%. FBR collected Rs. 740 billion in the month of december 2022 against Rs 599 billion in the same month last year, showing an impressive growth of almost 24% as compared to the same month last year
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