Pakistan In Focus - ECONOMIC TIMES OF PAKISTAN - Government mulls GST hike, tax relief withdrawal.

• Position: General sales tax - Brief article

In a bid to collect over Rs2 trillion through sales tax, the government is weighing between walking on an easy path and increasing general sales tax (GST) rate to 18percent or taking politically challenging decision of withdrawing concessional rates being availed by politically connected sectors.

The current sales tax collection is in the range of Rs1.7 trillion and the government is looking for avenues to generate additional over Rs350 billion from sales tax alone in fiscal year 2019-20. If the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) takes the politically challenging route, the government will have to sacrifice'sacred cows' like the textile and steel sectors. One of the budget proposals for fiscal year 2019-20 is to withdraw zero-rating facility being availed by five export-oriented sectors, said source. The FBR also...