PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Adviser Finance Muzammil Aslam on Thursday harshly criticised the federal budget, calling it a “killing poison.”
Speaking to reporters, Aslam claimed that the federal budget was dictated by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) rather than the government’s own intent. “The federal budget is essentially an IMF budget,” he asserted.
Aslam alleged that a 38 percent tax increase was implemented on IMF’s instructions. “The salaried class has been strangulated in this budget,” he added.
He highlighted that a 15 percent tax has been imposed on the real estate sector for the first time.
He also mentioned that the tax on non-filers has been raised to 45 percent, stating that non-filers are mostly from the poorer segments of society who are now overburdened with this high tax rate.
Aslam pointed out that after distributing the provincial shares, the federal government would be left with 9,111 billion rupees, which he argued would be insufficient for debt servicing alone.
The provincial finance adviser also criticised the provisions for the agriculture sector, noting that there is only a five billion rupee allocation for mark-up sharing.
He further contested the official inflation figure of 12 percent presented in the budget, suggesting that the actual price hike will be higher than the reported figure.
