ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) on Friday outright rejected the new budget, condemning the document as a refined exercise in elite self-preservation, delivered with the sincerity of a “merchant extolling the virtues of past stock that could not be sold”.
The party pointed out that over the last three to four budgets, the government has imposed every conceivable tax, abolished most reduced rates, removed zero-rating under the Fifth Schedule and withdrawn numerous exemptions. Beyond a few minor measures, the budget offers nothing substantive for the common citizen or small businesses.
Giving the party’s official reaction on the budget for the new fiscal year, PTI Information Secretary Sheikh Waqas Akram noted that the government now offers a growth rate of 3.7 percent as proof of economic resurgence, whereas the previous PTI administration, despite a global pandemic that paralysed economies worldwide, recorded growth approaching 6 percent in its final year, while also strengthening the current account and remittances.
The present government, with characteristic modesty, he alleged, treats its more modest achievement as a historic breakthrough, while relying heavily on remittances, external borrowing and other factors that deliver little tangible benefit to those who live and work within the economy.
Waqas Akram said that poverty has undergone a sharp and conspicuous reversal, pushing millions more citizens below the line of basic subsistence. “The poorest sections of society are now left to manage as best they can, their circumstances made considerably more difficult by conditions this budget claims to have mastered.”
The government, in its boundless generosity, he continued, acknowledges that the recent conflict-driven oil price increase and flood losses placed fresh and unexpected burdens on every household, only to then celebrate the introduction of targeted subsidies it was compelled to provide because broader relief had become too expensive.
The PTI spokesman noted that the salaried class, already the most heavily taxed segment of the formal economy, continues to discover that meeting basic household obligations has become an exercise in sustained improvisation. “Real incomes have been steadily diminished, while the relief measures contained in this budget—reductions for higher income brackets and the abolition or reduction of super tax on select business revenues—extend thoughtful consideration primarily to those already well positioned to absorb economic pressure,” he observed.
Waqas Akram stated that small businesses and traders now face a new fixed tax regime, expanded withholding tax on unregistered purchases, and intensified production monitoring through digital invoicing. At the same time, he noted, the government is shifting toward aggressive enforcement through large-scale faceless audits, with dedicated teams in Islamabad prepared to target businesses indiscriminately. Penalties for late filing and non-compliance have been significantly increased.
“This approach does not aim to broaden the tax base or bring new taxpayers into the net. Instead, it relies on harassment and coercion of already compliant taxpayers to extract more revenue, while doing little to address widespread tax evasion,” he claimed.
