Budgeting on sacrifice

WE are days away from the budget now and its details are still being worked out. Here is some of what we know thus far. They are likely to announce an FBR revenue target around Rs14 trillion (maybe slightly higher). Current expenditures are supposed to stay just below Rs23tr, of which around Rs16tr are federal and the rest from the provinces. The underlying primary balance (deficit plus interest expenditures) must remain somewhere near Rs1.17tr. These numbers will be more or less fixed since they are part of the medium-term framework already worked out with the IMF and released in the last staff report. Whatever space will need to be made for shifting tax and expenditure priorities must be created in a way that does not change these numbers by too much.