Suggesting that minimum wage should be increased to Rs8,000 per month and taxable income should be above Rs400,000, the Senate Standing Committee on Finance Revenue and Economic Affairs Wednesday unanimously approved some recommendations to the National Assembly for consideration to be incorporated in Finance Bill 2011-12. The Senate body, which met with Senator Ahmed Ali in the chair,considered the budget and the proposals submitted by the senators in this regard.
The members of the committee belonging to JUI-F, Senator Muhammad Ishaq Dar, Senator Haroon Khan, Senator Professor Khurshid Ahmad and Senator Syed Javed Ali Shah did not attend the meeting. However, they submitted their proposals to the committee other senators did. The said senators had announced to boycott committee in protest against the appointment of Maulana Abdul Gaffoor Haideri’s appointment as leader of the Opposition.
The committee in its meeting unanimously approved that minimum wage should be increased to Rs8,000 per month from Rs7,000 per month. Similarly, the Committee approved that minimum level of taxable income should be increased up to Rs400,000 from the proposed Rs350,000. The committee also agreed that all kinds of incomes must be taxed.
The committee further approved the proposal of reducing the foreign visits of the President and Prime Minister and also said that only one official of Parliament should be sent with members of National Assembly and Senate in their official visits.
The body also recommended to the National Assembly that it reduce the interest rate reasonably after decreasing the inflation rate. Moreover, the Committee of the Upper House also suggested in the recommendations the measures that should be taken to resolving the energy crisis, reducing cost of production, consistency in economic policies, one-window operation for investment, broadening of direct taxes, mobilising additional resources, plugging leakages and eliminating corruption.
However, the committee rejected the proposal of reducing General Sales Tax (GST) rate to 15 per cent from 16 per cent, as officials of Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) informed the committee that it would cost Rs35 billion to the tax department.
The FBR members informed the Committee that they already reduce the GST rate by one per cent, 17 to 16 per cent.
