IMF team due next week to discuss taxation proposals for next budget

ISLAMABAD: A technical team of the IMF will be visiting Pakistan from next week for holding parleys with the FBR high-ups to discuss taxation proposals for the upcoming budget 2025-26.

The FBR is all set to propose broadening of the narrowed tax base for bringing retailers and other untaxed sectors into the tax net, but it is the wish-list of the government to slash tax rates for salaried class in the next budget. Both sides will discuss the possibility of bringing the highest bracket of pension earners into the tax net.

The mission will reach Islamabad on April 14, 2025 and is expected to stay here for more than one week. The IMF’s technical mission on governance and anti-corruption diagnostic assessment would leave Pakistan next week.

A high-powered Pakistani delegation, led by Minister for Finance Mohammad Aurangzeb, will participate in the upcoming annual spring meetings of the Bretton Woods Institutions (IMF and World Bank) in Washington, D.C., scheduled from April 21 to 26, 2025.