-Income Tax returns filing date extended till 30th
By Ali Imran
ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday announced that there would be no change in the prices of petroleum products for the next fortnight.
“The government has decided that the prices of petroleum products at this moment, from Oct 16, will be maintained for the next 15 days. There will be no change in them,” he said in a press conference in Islamabad.
The current prices for petrol are Rs224.80 per litre, Rs235.30 for HSD, Rs186.50 for LDO and Rs191.83 for kerosene. On October 15, too, the government had decided to keep the petrol prices unchanged.
During his brief media talk Monday, Dar noted that Oct 31st was the last date to file tax returns. “But since it got a lot of representation from different groups, we have decided to extend the date to Nov 30,” he said.
Thirdly, the finance minister said that there were around 8,000 cases of suspended letters of credit (LCs) two weeks back. “Previously, the government had announced that LCs and payments of up to $50,000 would be released.
“I had a meeting with the SBP (State Bank of Pakistan) governor today and we have decided, with the involvement of SBP, that we will increase this amount to $100,000. The SBP will start clearing them tomorrow,” Dar said.
He added that 4,400 out of 8,000 LCs had been cleared and the new move would further clear 1,365 cases.
Last week, in a video message from Washington, where he is participating in the International Monetary Fund and World Bank annual meetings, Dar said the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority’s fuel price summary was received by the finance ministry, adding that it had an “insignificant” price decrease recommendation for petrol and price increase recommendation for kerosene, light diesel oil (LDO) and high-speed diesel (HSD).
“I discussed with the prime minister and it was decided that we will not change the prices of all four products and they will remain the same till October 31,” he said, adding that there would be no increase or decrease.
The current price for petrol price is Rs224.80 per litre, Rs235.30 for HSD, Rs186.50 for LDO and Rs191.83 for kerosene.
Days ago, despite a 14 per cent appreciation of the rupee against the dollar, the prices of three major petroleum products were estimated to go up by Rs5 to 12 per litre and that of petrol to drop by almost Rs11 per litre on Oct 15 for next fortnight if the government maintained its existing tax rates.
Based on existing tax rates, the ex-depot price of petrol was estimated to come down by Rs10.75 per litre to about Rs214. Conversely, the price of HSD was estimated to increase by Rs11.50 per litre to about Rs247. Likewise, the prices of kerosene and LDO were estimated to be higher by Rs4.50 and Rs7.50 per litre to about Rs196 and Rs194 per litre, respectively.
The benchmark international crude prices had dropped over the last couple of weeks but because of refining capacity constraints, refining margins and premiums on HSD had increased over the same period, resulting in a higher cost impact on HSD imports to Pakistan. The crude prices again started an upward journey this week after production cuts announced by the major oil exporting countries but these would translate to price changes in the next fortnight beginning November 1.
