Govt to place formula for revival of tax on mobile phone cards before SC.

The government will present an alternative formula to the Supreme Court for revival of taxes on mobile phone cards to bridge the revenue shortfall and meet budgetary target instead of imposing any new taxes in the next five months.

'No new taxes will be imposed in the current fiscal year to achieve revenue target as prior conditions for availing the International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout package,' said State Minister for Revenue Hammad Azhar here on Thursday.

The minister was addressing a hurriedly called news conference at press information department to respond to the criticism raised by PML-N lawmakers over the performance of economic indicators and downgrading by rating agencies.

While rejecting their remarks, Azhar said that negotiations with the IMF are continued and some improvement has been made referring to the conditionalities. 'We will not accept any conditionality attached with the IMF that will directly impact our economy or people,' the minister said.

He said no additional revenue measures will be taken except to present a new formula to revise taxes on telecom services as the court had rejected Federal Board of Revenue's earlier formula. 'Now we are hopeful that the court will consider our formula,' Azhar said.

In June 2018, the Supreme Court suspended deduction of taxes on the top-up of prepaid cards by mobile phone service providers. The annual revenue collection alone from these is around Rs80bn.

PTI government entered into talks with the IMF soon after coming into power but the scale of adjustments being demanded by the lender were too large and as a result, the programme faced delays as the IMF demands in their current shape are too steep to be implemented.

Asked about the exact timing of accession to the programme, the minister said it depends on improvements in their conditionalities. However, he said that his government has...