The federal government proposed around 18% increase in the defence budget as the country continued to face internal and external security challenges, the budget document showed on Wednesday. The defence budget outlay for 2024-25 is Rs2,128 billion – less than 12% of the total budget – compared to Rs1, 809 earmarked for the outgoing fiscal year 2023-24. However, the revised defence spending in t
The government on Wednesday proposed imposing a record Rs1.5 trillion in additional taxes to achieve an ambitious Rs13 trillion target for the new fiscal year, which is expected to unleash an inflationary storm in Pakistan due to heavy indirect taxation and further reductions in individual incomes. In an unprecedented move, despite heavy taxation, there remains an Rs800 billion gap between the me
The federal government has set an ambitious target of Rs1,281 billion on account of Petroleum Levy (PL) on petroleum products for the upcoming fiscal year 2024-25. This projection marks an increase of Rs321 billion over the revised estimate of Rs960 billion for the current fiscal year 2023-24. While the originally budgeted PL for the current year was Rs869 billion, the actual increase represents a
MUCH will be written about the budget’s specifics, but there is something else on my mind this year. This budget marks nearly a quarter century of back-to-back, virtually nonstop IMF programmes that Pakistan has been on. This means for 25, or a quarter of a century now, we have had a near continuous run of austerity as national economic policy, with the exception of three brief spurts of short-liv
The budget for fiscal year 2024-25 that was presented by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Wednesday had a fresh take on income tax slabs. Check our calculator to see how much tax you’ll have to pay on your salary if the budget comes into force.