KARACHI: Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin has announced that there was no new tax being imposed on the salaried class in the federal budget FY2021-22.

He added that in order to support small businesses, the annual turnover tax ceiling has been increased from Rs10 million to Rs100 million, while sales tax is being reduced.

He said federal excise duty is being removed from cars up to 850cc while value-added tax (VAT) on these is being removed.

“To support electric cars, the government of Pakistan wants to support manufacturing of electric cars for which a lot of tax relaxations are being given,” Tarin said.

The finance minister announced that for FY22, the government had set GDP growth target at 4.8 per cent.

“We hope growth will be even higher than that due to the measures we have taken in this budget. Like in the past, we will not leave the weak segments of our society at mercy of the trickledown effect.”

He said in the next couple of years, the government wants to increase growth to 6-7 per cent.