{"id":2832,"date":"2025-06-12T16:28:26","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/?p=2832"},"modified":"2025-06-12T16:28:26","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T16:28:26","slug":"finance-minister-briefs-parliamentary-committee-on-budget-2025-lawmakers-raise-concerns-over-taxation-and-economic-challenges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/2025\/06\/12\/finance-minister-briefs-parliamentary-committee-on-budget-2025-lawmakers-raise-concerns-over-taxation-and-economic-challenges\/","title":{"rendered":"Finance Minister Briefs Parliamentary Committee on Budget 2025; Lawmakers Raise Concerns Over Taxation and Economic Challenges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Islamabad<\/strong>\u2014 A meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue was held at Parliament House under the chairmanship of MNA Syed Naveed Qamar. The Federal Minister for Finance provided a comparative overview of the 2025 budget, highlighting improvements in inflation, interest rates, the current account deficit, and structural and tariff reforms.<\/p>\n

Addressing widespread speculation, the Minister dismissed media rumors regarding a mini-budget, asserting that such claims were baseless. He detailed government initiatives focused on fiscal discipline, economic stability, social welfare, and public services. Key measures included tax relief for the salaried class and an expanded Benazir Income Support Program (BISP).<\/p>\n

The Minister of State and the Secretary of Finance elaborated on the policy framework behind the Finance Bill 2025 and outlined fiscal proposals for the upcoming financial year.<\/p>\n

During the session, committee members voiced concerns over several critical areas, including Pakistan\u2019s low tax-to-GDP ratio, revenue shortfalls, and new taxes on solar panels, hybrid vehicles, and petroleum products. Other major points of discussion included carbon and petroleum levies, private sector debt, agricultural and industrial performance, withholding tax (WHT) on bank transactions, pensions, health and gender allocations, sales tax on cotton, and defence spending.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers also criticized the inefficiency of Customs Intelligence and persistent cross-border smuggling. The negative growth trends in the manufacturing and agriculture sectors, along with the widening current account deficit, were also highlighted as urgent issues.<\/p>\n

The chairman called for regular briefings and directed that a comprehensive overview of structural and tariff reforms be prepared and shared with committee members.<\/p>\n

The meeting was attended by several parliamentarians, including Omar Ayub Khan, Rana Iradat Sharif Khan, Syed Sami Ul Hassan Gilani, and Dr. Nafisa Shah, among others. Senior officials from the Ministry of Finance and Revenue were also present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Islamabad\u2014 A meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue was held at Parliament House under the chairmanship of MNA Syed Naveed Qamar. The Federal Minister for Finance provided a comparative overview of the 2025 budget, highlighting improvements in inflation, interest rates, the current account deficit, and structural and tariff reforms. Addressing …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2834,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2832\/revisions\/2834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peakpoint.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}