FY26: Govt proposes imposing tax on online shopping in finance bill

• Bill says every payment intermediary shall file quarterly withholding statement.
• Every online marketplace shall submit amount deposited into vendor’s account.
• Federal Board of Revenue brings online shopping into tax net in Finance Bill.

ISLAMABAD: Online shopping has been brought into the tax net in the Finance Bill 2025-26 by the Federal Board of Revenue. The News reported.

The Finance Bill says under 165C that every payment intermediary and courier service responsible for deducting tax under sub-section (2A) of section 153 of the Ordinance shall file a quarterly withholding statement to the Commissioner for tax deduction regarding sale of digitally ordered goods and services for each quarter of a tax year.

This will be done in the prescribed form setting out — (a) name, identification number (NTN/CNIC) and address of the seller; (b) transaction date, unique identifier (invoice number) and total transaction value; (c) the total amount of tax deducted at the time of payments to the seller; and any other particular may be prescribed.

Every online marketplace in Pakistan shall submit a monthly statement containing name, address, Sales Tax and Income Tax registration number of every vendors registered on its platform supplying digitally ordered goods and services in e-commerce, transactional and aggregated quantum of seller’s monthly turnover and the amount deposited into the vendor’s bank account against such sale transactions.

All the provisions of the section 165 excluding sub-sections (1), (1A) and (6) shall mutatis mutandis apply with respect to the due date of the filling of the withholding statements, revision of the statements, power to call for statement by the Commissioner, extension of time to furnish the statement after due date, power of the Board, filing of annual withholding statement and reconciliation of the withholding statement with the annual income tax return.