ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin has left for the US to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
\nFinance ministry officials on Tuesday said Tarin \u2014 who is leading Pakistan\u2019s official entourage \u2014 will participate in policy-level talks with the IMF.
\n“Policy talks between Pakistan and the IMF will continue from October 13 to 15,” officials added.
\nDuring the meeting, the finance minister will brief the Fund about Pakistan’s economic performance.
\nThe next installment worth $1 billion is likely to be received on the success of the talks.
\nThe IMF programme under $6 billion EFF \u2014 which had been stalled since March this year \u2014 is in limbo at the moment and can only be revived if both sides evolved a consensus on the steps to move forward.<\/p>\n
Virtual discussions on IMF conditions ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Finance Shaukat Tarin has left for the US to attend the annual meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Finance ministry officials on Tuesday said Tarin \u2014 who is leading Pakistan\u2019s official entourage \u2014 will participate in policy-level talks with the IMF. “Policy talks between Pakistan and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":2929,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,2],"tags":[567,1745,1247,1746,572,1268,131,160],"class_list":["post-3240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-pakistan","tag-federal-board-of-revenue","tag-federal-minister-for-finance-shaukat-tarin","tag-international-monetary-fund","tag-muzammil-aslam","tag-sbp","tag-world-bank","tag-fbr","tag-imf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyausaf.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIn order to strike a staff-level agreement, the IMF staff has placed tough conditions such as presenting a mini-budget for hiking upward adjustments in the Personal Income Tax (PIT), especially in higher income brackets of salaried and non-salaried class, removing GST exemptions, raising Regulatory Duty (RD) on luxury items, hiking baseline electricity tariff by Rs1.40 per unit, increasing discount rates by 50 to 75 basis points, devaluation of the exchange rate to bring it in line with the real effective exchange rate and further hiking of gas tariff.
\nThe IMF wants to jack up the Federal Board of Revenue\u2019s (FBR) tax collection target to Rs6.3 trillion against an envisaged target of Rs5.829 trillion. It requires an additional collection of Rs500 billion. This increase in FBR\u2019s collection will compensate for the shortfall on account of the petroleum levy that was envisaged to fetch Rs610 billion on the eve of the budget 2021-22.
\nInterestingly, the autonomy of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and the tabled bill has been put on the backburner for the time being, so its approval would be linked to the next review.
\nAlthough the virtual talks held between the two sides identified major loopholes on the fiscal front and pointed out that there was a potential risk of Rs862 billion on the fiscal front in the shape of a petroleum levy of Rs610 billion and privatisation proceeds of fetching Rs252 billion during the current fiscal year.
\nTop officials in background discussions told this scribe that the IMF staff presented its wish list before the authorities during technical level talks held last week but \u201cthose have been their demands. It does not mean we have to accept them in ditto\u201d.
\nThe policy discussions would continue in Washington, DC, this week where Tarin, along with governor SBP and secretary finance, would make all-out efforts to convince the IMF for stall level agreement. Pakistani authorities would ask the IMF for deferring the taxation measures till the next budget and would ask to jack up the FBR target to Rs6-6.1 trillion.
\nThe power and gas tariff will be further hiked in a gradual manner. The discount rate will be hiked by 50 basis points while exchange rate adjustments would be allowed during the coming fiscal year.
\nIn the worst-case scenario, the government might show its willingness to present a mini bill for making changes in the income tax and sales tax but it might take some time for approval. The IMF may come up with the condition to promulgate an ordinance for making adjustments in Personal Income Tax and removal of GST exemptions at the first stage and then get the mini bill passed from the Parliament.
\nWhen contacted, Spokesperson for Federal Minister for Finance Muzammil Aslam confirmed that the technical level talks with the IMF concluded on a good note and the remaining two to three issues would be sorted out in a face-to-face review meeting scheduled to be held in Washington, DC.
\nRead more:\u00a0Shaukat Tarin, Moonis Elahi among over 700 Pakistanis named in Pandora Papers leaks<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"