ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb has announced that the government aims to increase the country’s tax-to-GDP ratio from the current 9-10 per cent to 13 per cent over the next three years.
Speaking at a news conference in Islamabad alongside Minister of State Ali Pervez and Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Attaullah Tarar, the minister said that aligning the income and expenditure of taxpayers was must for economic stability.
Tax reforms
He also emphasied the significance of tax reforms as a critical part of the government’s economic strategy.
The minister also noted that a tax amendment bill had already been tabled in the parliament, which aims to decrease human intervention in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) through the use of technology, thus overcoming the issue of corruption and harassment.
Digitalisation
He said that they were working on digitalisation and reducing human intervention to ensure better compliance and efficiency.
Aurangzeb said that key steps would be taken to increase revenue, with an emphasis on streamlining the process of digitalisation that began in March.
He also assured that the government would also focus on minimizing the burden on honest taxpayers while addressing tax gap.
“Tax burden must be distributed fairly across all sectors of society,” the minister said, emphasising that tax reforms will ensure that no single group shoulders an excessive tax load.
