Carbon tax on CNG withdrawn

ISLAMABAD, June 19: Bowing to intense opposition, both within and outside parliament, to the recently-announced carbon tax on petroleum products, Prime Minister Gilani announced on Thursday that the black tax would not be imposed on CNG.

The prime minister made this highly popular announcement while speaking in the ongoing budget session of the National Assembly. “I have directed the Finance Ministry to withdraw the carbon tax on CNG worth Rs 12 billion and also directed a review of the overall proposed carbon tax and come up with a transparent mechanism,” he said.

The proposed carbon tax has been castigated both by the opposition and the treasury back-benchers with the Leader of the Opposition, Chaudhry Nisar, terming it a “Jagga tax” the other day. Similar harsh reactions were also witnessed in the Senate.

Senator Mian Raza Rabbani, while taking part in the budget discussion in the Senate, had also proposed abolishing the carbon tax on CNG at least. In his policy statement in the National Assembly, Gilani said CNG was being produced locally, was environment-friendly and being heavily used by the lower middle-class, which could not bear more taxation and, therefore, the surcharge on it was being withdrawn. One wonders if this logic was too complicated for his finance adviser and his team to understand in the first place.

He said though withdrawing this surcharge would cause a loss of Rs 12 billion to the government, he had directed the Finance Ministry to review the overall carbon surcharge and come up with suggestions for atransparent mechanism for its imposition so that sufferings of the people could be reduced.

APP adds: Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tareen has said the government was ready to review all taxes, as it did not want to burden the people. Talking to Geo News, he said 20 paisa tax had been imposed on each short massaging service (SMS) with the consent of mobile operators. Twenty paisa is so meagre that it would not make any difference, he said, adding as many as 50 billion SMS are sent annually. The carbon tax was not a new tax but only a replacement of the Petroleum Development Levy (PDL).