KARACHI: State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) on Tuesday announced that the central bank will remain closed on August 29 and 30 on occasion of Ashura, Muharram ul Haram, 1442 AH.
The SBP, in a statement, said that the central bank will remain closed on August 29-30, 2020 (Saturday and Sunday) on the occasion of Ashura, Muharram-ul-Haram, 1442 AH.
KARACHI: The stock market gained 570 points on Tuesday as banking sector performed well on upcoming inflations numbers and monetary policy announcement.
The benchmark KSE-100 index of Pakistan Stock Exchange (PSX) closed at 40,863 points as against 40,293 points showing an increase of 570 points.
Analysts at Arif Habib Limited said that the market continued the ascent from yesterday’s level. Banking sector performed well today, which brought the index to higher level.
Expectation of high CPI, scheduled to be announced next week and monetary policy decision in September are the major reasons for brisk activity in Banking sector.
Announcement of POL’s financial results with high dividend payout resulted in POL reaching a new high.
Overall, E&P stocks posted gains on the index. Refinery sector posted highest trading volumes with 65.9 million shares, followed by Cement (62.2 million) and O&GMCs (53.5 million). Among scrips, PRL topped the volumes with 48.9 million shares, followed by HASCOL (36.1 million) and KAPCO (18.5 million).
Sectors contributing to the performance include Banks (+205 points), E&P (+86 points), Fertilizer (+55 points), Textile (+46 points) and Power (+38 points).
Volumes declined from 535.1 million shares to 508.0 million shares (-5 percent DoD). Average traded value however increased by 6 percent to reach US$ 127.8 million as against US$ 120.8 million.
Stocks that contributed significantly to the volumes include PRL, HASCOL, KAPCO, MLCF and TRG, which formed 27 percent of total volumes.
Stocks that contributed positively to the index include HBL (+124 points), MCB (+61 points), UBL (+48 points), POL (+41 points) and ENGRO (+37 points). Stocks that contributed negatively include BAFL (-35 points), NESTLE (-11 points), ABL (-8 points), PMPK (-6 points) and PSEL (-5 points).
ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has granted audit immunity to salaried individuals and pensioners for income declared/ return filed for tax year 2018.
The FBR on Tuesday issued Audit Policy 2019 and announced exclusion from audit to certain classes of taxpayers.
The FBR said that all cases where income chargeable to tax under the head of salary and / or pension exceeds 50 percent of taxable income should be excluded from income tax audit. The FBR said that directors of companies would not qualify for the exclusion.
The FBR also excluded persons falling under final tax regime from audit selection.
The FBR said that under Audit Policy 2019 those cases would not be selected, which were already selected for audit by commissioner Inland Revenue and Director Intelligence and Investigation (I&I) (IR) under Section 177 and in consequence of action under section 175 of the Income Tax Ordinance, 2001 for tax year 2018.
The FBR further said that those cases would not be selected where declaration had been made under the Voluntary Declaration of Domestic Assets Act, 2018. Further, those cases will also not be selected where declaration has been made under the Asset Declaration Ordinance, 2019.
The FBR said that Audit Policy 2019 would apply to persons or classes of persons falling under all or any of the three domestic federal tax statutes i.e. Income Tax Ordinance, 2001, Sales Tax Act, 1990, and Federal Excise Act, 2005 and shall provide the necessary framework for selection of cases for audit by the Board.
The FBR further said that the for the purpose of selecting cases for audit through risk based approach by conducting computer ballots, the policy be effective for tax year 2018 for Income Tax and corresponding tax periods for sales tax and federal excise.
The FBR said that it would conduct computer ballot by applying risk based parameters for selection of 0.76 percent of cases for audit out of the total filers after exclusions in Income Tax for the tax year 2018.
For sales tax and federal excise, the FBR would select 1.67 percent and 5.65 percent cases for audit respectively out of the total filers after exclusions for tax period corresponding to accounting period adopted for the purpose of returns for income tax for tax year 2018.
However, the FBR has limited the audit cases selected without the risk-based system to 10 percent of total audits subject to clearance by Member (Taxpayers Audit).
KARACHI: The Pak Rupee ended down by six paisas on Tuesday against dollar owing to higher demand for import and corporate payments.
The rupee ended Rs168.43 to the dollar from previous day’s closing of Rs168.37 in interbank foreign exchange market.
Currency experts said that demand from importers and corporate buyers were remained higher during the day which depressed the rupee value.
They said that the improved inflows of workers’ remittances and export receipts may helped the local unit to improve value.
The balance of payment of the country registered current account surplus i.e. 1.9 percent of the GDP during the first month of the current fiscal year.
The BOP witnessed a current account deficit of 2.8 percent of the GDP in July 2019.
The statistics revealed that the current account surplus stood at $424 million in July 2020 as compared with current account deficit of $613 million in the same month of the last year.
The current account surplus may be attributed to record inflows of workers’ remittances in July 2020. In the month under review the workers’ remittances rose to $2.77 billion. This is the highest ever level of remittances in a single month in Pakistan, according to the SBP.
The exports also exhibited 6.1 percent growth to $2 billion in July 2020 as compared with $1.88 billion in the same month of the last year. On the other hand the import bill of the country declined by 0.7 percent to $3.68 billion in July 2020 as compared with $3.71 in the same month of the last year.
The trade deficit narrowed by 7.7 percent to $1.68 billion in July 2020 as compared with the deficit of $1.83 billion in the same month of the last year.
ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has amended sales tax rules in order to bring more businesses into the tax net.
The FBR issued SRO 776(I)/2020 on Tuesday to amend Sales Tax Rules, 2006. Through the amendment the FBR explained that null return should be treated as a sales tax return which shows no data related to sales and purchases during a tax period.
Further, the FBR has made mandatory for a business to provide names of all business branches/outlets along with complete addresses etc.
The FBR also made it mandatory that a business owner will provide details of all brands names/trademarks in which dealing. The FBR said that the business owner shall provide details of all business brand names / trademarks etc. in which dealing.