Business

The circular debt in Pakistan’s power sector worries the World Bank.

Published

2 days ago

Farwa

According to the World Bank’s assessment, during the last half-decade, the debt has grown by 1241 billion rupees, with an additional 1128 billion rupees between 2019 and 2021.

The circular debt of the power industry has been increasing at a concerning rate, according to a World Bank analysis. Between 2022 and 2024, there was a significant increase of 113 billion rupees.

The total amount of circular debt in Pakistan’s electricity industry as of 2024 is 2393 billion rupees.

The World Bank underlined the necessity of changes to address the issue of circular debt.

Prior to this, the growing circular debt in Pakistan’s power industry was another source of “concerns” for the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Authorities from Pakistan and the IMF discussed plans to raise the circular debt in the power sector by an additional 100 billion rupees during the current fiscal year.

It is anticipated that the circular debt in the power industry will exceed Rs 2,550 billion by June 2025, according to sources.

Pakistan has promised the IMF that timely tariff adjustments will be made in order to manage the circular debt.

The IMF has mandated that the electricity sector’s circular debt be limited to 2,500 billion rupees. Still, reports indicate that the joint debt control strategy with the IMF was not carried out satisfactorily even in the most recent fiscal year.

IMF requirements said that for the current fiscal year, the circular debt was to be kept under control at 2,310 billion rupees. A breach of the loan agreement may result from failure to meet this requirement.

Business

Petroleum Product Prices: High-Speed Diesel Has Increased by Rs. 5/L, while Petrol Price Has Not Changed

Published

51 mins ago

Farwa

While the price of petrol has remained the same, the price of high-speed diesel has been raised by five rupees per litre for the next two weeks in order to bring it in line with the prices of oil being sold throughout the world.

According to a statement issued by the government, the new pricing went into effect on October 6th.

Business

Income tax return filing deadline extended once again

Published

1 day ago

Farwa

The due date for submitting income tax returns for the tax year 2023–24 was once again extended until October 31 by the Federal Board of Revenue on Tuesday.

The deadline of October 14 was earlier. The first deadline for filing tax returns was September 30, as stated in the income tax ordinance.

A three-day bank closure in Islamabad and Rawalpindi owing to the SCO summit, along with a request for an extension from business organizations and tax bar associations, are all included in the FBR.

4.537 million income tax returns were filed as of October 14, according to the FBR, an increase of 107.83 percent over the 2.183 million forms filed during the same period last year. The FBR got 6.464 million returns for the most recent tax year. It forecasts 1.927 million more returns to match the level of previous year.

Based on initial statistics, 1.059 million new filers were enrolled throughout the same time in 2024, from July 1, 2023, to October 14, 2024.

Business

FBR begins pursuing tax evaders.

Published

1 day ago

Farwa

The Chief Financial Officer of a well-known battery company has been placed under arrest for his suspected involvement in a sales tax evasion scheme worth over Rs. 1 billion, according to FBR Spokesman Bakhtiar Muhammad.

According to the FBR spokesperson, the Chief Financial Officer of a significant textile company in Faisalabad was also detained for his alleged role in millions of rupees’ worth of sales tax fraud.

According to Bakhtiar Muhammad, the third suspect was detained for allegedly avoiding tax fraud totaling billions of rupees.

He claimed that when the court denied bail, suspects were taken into custody.

Details of Pakistan’s annual tax evasion were previously disclosed by Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb on Thursday.

The minister disclosed that Pakistan’s yearly tax evasion revenue is close to Rs7,000 billion. According to him, efforts are being made to enlarge the tax base and restructure Pakistan’s tax structure.

The minister also declared a “war against tax evaders” in Pakistan and acknowledged that the nation’s salary class bears the brunt of tax burdens.

Additionally, Aurangzeb stated that the goal is to raise the economy’s tax contribution to 13.5 percent.

It should be mentioned that the FBR spokesperson previously stated that the organization is prepared to add over 2.8 million prospective homes to the tax system, which would generate an estimated Rs1.6 trillion in revenue for the country.

“Approximately 3.5 million high-income households are required to pay taxes to the government; however, 2.8 million of them do not pay taxes,” FBR Spokesperson Bakhtiar Muhammad said APP.