Staff Reporter Islamabad
Minister for Information and Broadcasting Fawad Chaudhry has said that to reduce the burden of increasing international petroleum prices, the government of Pakistan has been reducing the tax rate on fuel.
In a statement, the minister said that in January this year, Brent crude price was $51 per barrel whereas in July it touched $75 mark, showing an increase of 47 percent.
He said that in January, petrol price in Pakistan was Rs106 per litre and now in July it is being sold at Rs118 per litre, showing an increase of only 11.3 percent.
Fawad said if petroleum levy was kept at December 2020 level of Rs30, which was the maximum the government can charge, the additional collection would have been approx Rs200 billion. He said that the petroleum levy has been slowly reduced during the last 7 months.
He said for the month of July, the foregone approximate Rs27 billion tax would have been collected, if the government had kept sales tax at 17 percent and levy at Rs15 as per IMF Programme (pre-Covid level).
He said that average tax on per litre petrol during the last 6 months of teh Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government was Rs22.5 compared to only Rs11.5 currently.
