Defence expenses should also be made accountable: FM

ISLAMABAD: Federal Finance Minister, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh has said that the defence expenditures should also be accounted for.

Addressing post-budget press conference here, Dr. Abdul Hafeez Sheikh said the defence for any country, in the world that we live in, was vital.

He said that the volume of government expenditures was more than the income and efforts were afoot to bring it down. He further said that measures have been taken to widen the tax-net, as sectors earlier exempted from sales tax were also included.

Finance minister said that income tax was such a source where the possibility of an increase in the volume of revenue exists and in this connection about 2.3 million persons have been identified, while notices in the first phase would be issued to 0.7 million persons.

Dr. Hafeez Sheikh said that subsidies to some sectors would be retained and at least Rs50 billion would be spent under the Benazir Income Support Programme, which could further be extended.

As regards agriculture tax, federal finance minister said that the recovery of agriculture tax was unsatisfactory and we should hope that the provincial government would be making some headway in this regard. He further said that Sindh recovered Rs500 million from agriculture, but it fell down to Rs150 million in 2010.