THE national discourse on the budget has been dominated by what is in the document for the business community, exporters and salaried employees. And the theme is to celebrate the 10 to 15 per cent tax relief given to salaried employees — taken as proxies for common Pakistanis. These beneficiaries earn more than Rs200,000 a month. But 80pc of Pakistani households spend less than Rs100,000 a month, according to last year’s Household Integrated Economic Survey. This is the entire household which may have multiple earners, and not just one salaried employee.

It is true that there are no taxes on salaried employees with an annual income of less than Rs600,000, which roughly translates to Rs50,000 a month. The majority live in rural areas where one-third of the country’s workers earn their living from farming. The agricultural income tax laws passed across Pakistan last year also peg the minimum annual taxable income at the same level. According to the calculations of the Pakistan Agricultural Coalition, 95pc of farmers earn less than this threshold.

So what is in this budget for the vast majority of Pakistanis? Starting at the bottom, the Benazir Income Support Programme allocation is proposed at Rs838 billion, which increases the payout to Rs18,000 per quarter for each of about 10 million families scoring less than 16 on the BISP scorecard. This is three times the BISP payout before Covid; it keeps pace with the devastating inflation numbers of the post-Covid years. But these are the bottom 25pc of Pakistani families. BISP would enhance their monthly expenditure by around 10pc.

The only allocation........

© Dawn