ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has increased the valuation of property in Karachi by upto 25 percent while maintaining 11 categories of the properties in the metropolitan, ARY NEWS reported.For commercial in A-one category, the rate of open plot has been raised by Rs30,000 along with Rs11,250 per square yard increase for a build-up property.
Of the Rs 70 billion total, the impact of rising property values is estimated to be about Rs 30 billion. It is anticipated that higher withholding taxes on the updated assessments and new withholding tax rates will be used to collect the remaining Rs 40 billion.
The government’s plan to tax newspapers by 10% was supported by Senator Farooq H. Naek of the Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) during a hearing of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance. During this meeting, a property valuation statement was made.
Naek continued, saying that since newspapers are no longer read by many people, taxes on newsprint were a reasonable way for the government to raise funds.
Even though the government may only make $400 million from the budget, the 10% general sales tax (GST) will harm a struggling industry.
The FBR will raise property assessments from the average of 75% of market values to 90% beginning in July, according to Mir Badsha Khan Wazir, Member Operations of the FBR, who made this announcement during the committee meeting.
“Only 5% of the retail sector is registered with the FBR and it is now going after the 5% by completely ignoring the undocumented 95%,” said Ziad Bashir, owner of retail brand IDEAS.
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