As Islamabad continues to negotiate with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) over the next tranche of the $3 billion Stand-By Arrangement (SBA), no demand for additional tax measures has been put forward by the global lender, officials said. However, they have submitted a plan to bring another 1.5 million people under the tax net to bolster its revenue generation.
These plans were shared during the technical-level discussions with IMF officials, Dawn reported on Sunday.
It confirms that Pakistan's tax collection, in terms of overall tax revenues and who it taxes, remains a major area of concern for the IMF at the technical level.
In talks with officials from the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR), they reviewed the board's performance in revenue collection during the first quarter of the financial year.
The IMF team is evaluating whether Pakistan remains on track per the conditions agreed upon for the SBA. The technical review commenced on November 2 and completed earlier this week on November 10.
Should the technical committee certify Pakistan remains on track, it will release the next tranche of $710 million in December.
FBR officials said that they shared their data with the IMF and said that the Fund has not raised demands for new taxes thus far as they rejected the rumours of demands to increase the revenue targets beyond Rs9.415 trillion or new taxes on traders, real estate or other sectors.