Punjab budget 2018-19 to be tax-free: minister

Punjab Finance Minister Dr Aysha Ghous Pasha said that the next fiscal budget for the 2018-19 will be tax-free but the expansion of the tax net will remain the agenda of the provincial government, besides focusing on social sector development projects.

Chairing the maiden meeting of the resource mobilisation committee for the fiscal year 2018-19 budget, the minister said the budget would also focus the development of Punjab, and selection of the development projects would be made on the output of the projects. The budget would facilitate agriculture and export promotion. She said the Punjab government focused on comprehensive taxation reforms for collection of tax and non-tax revenue to increase the indigenous resources of the province.

The meeting was co-chaired by Provincial Minister for Commerce and Industry Sheikh Alaudin and attended by MPAs Haji Ilyas Insari, Abdul Rauf Mughal, Nadia Aziz, Livestock Secretary Naseem Sadiq, PRA Chairman Raheel Ahmed Siddique, Excise and Taxation DG Akram Asharf Gondal, Budget Additional Secretary Rana Ubaid, Deputy Secretary Resources Faiqa and other officials concern of the provincial departments.

Dr Aysha Ghous Pasha said the government was working to introduce online tax collection procedures to minimize tax evasion and to increase the direct interaction with the taxpayers. An application is being created to bring the all tax collection to a single platform to facilitate the taxpayers and end the hassle. To implement it, recently the Punjab government has launched a business registration portal for the business through which they can complete all business registration process without visiting any government office, she said.

The minister informed the meeting that all the revenue collection agencies of the Punjab were achieving their targets of tax collection as a result of the reforms introduced through resource mobilisation committee recommendations. Besides, it has also been promoting the positive tax culture in Punjab, she added.

Sheikh Alaudin stressed the need for collection of vehicle token tax locally and highlighted reduction in revenue collection on luxury vehicles. He suggested leving the tax on manufacturers' invoice not on the dealers' invoice to stop the revenue leakages.

The PRA and Excise and Taxation departments updated the meeting on the revenue collection and presented their proposal for the next fiscal year. Besides, the representatives of other departments presented the status of their non-tax revenue collection.

The minister instructed the departments to eradicate the irrelevant non-tax revenue collections and accumulate the necessary non-tax revenue to make it part of the online application. The meeting decided to finalise the implementable revenue mobilisation proposal for the next budget in the next meeting.