Opposition Leader of National Assembly and President of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Shehbaz Sharif has said that government has announced that it will collect 27% or Rs1050 billion more in taxes but doesn’t tell us how it will do that.
He added “Mark my words: there will be a mini-budget and this PTI government will try to raise taxes through the backdoor.”
Shehbaz Sharif, while criticizing second budget of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government, said that agricultural output decreased by 2.9% last year and one cannot logically blame Covid-19 for that and reduction in cotton of 6.9% will further decrease textile exports.
PML-N President claimed that PTI government has offered nothing to revive the economy and said that government should have come up with increased PSDP funding and innovative programs to redress increasing unemployment and poverty but instead the PSDP budget has decreased from Rs 701 billion to Rs 650 billion.
Shehbaz Sharif also termed reduction in social protection budget from Rs. 245 billion to Rs 230 billion as anti-poor.
He further said that large scale manufacturing is down by 7.8%. Yet the budget has no plans to revive the manufacturing. He added that this was a time when reduction in the sales tax and duties was warranted.