The Federal budget 2018–19 is the federal budget of

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

for the

fiscal year A fiscal year (also known as a financial year, or sometimes budget year) is used in government accounting, which varies between countries, and for budget purposes. It is also used for financial reporting by businesses and other organizations. La ...

beginning from 1 July 2018 and ending on 30 June 2019. The budget was presented by finance minister

Miftah Ismail Miftah Ismail (; born 23 July 1965) is a Pakistani political economist who served as the Federal Minister of Finance from April 2022 to September 2022. He had previously served in the same office, from April 2018 to May 2018 in Khaqan Abbasi' ...

on 28 April 2018, just months before the

general elections A general election is an electoral process to choose most or all members of a governing body at the same time. They are distinct from by-elections, which fill individual seats that have become vacant between general elections. General elections ...

scheduled in the country for the next government. The budget announced several measures; including an allocation Rs. 1,100 billion for defence expenditures; a ten percent hike in salaries and pensions of civil and military employees; a health tax enforced on tobacco and import taxes on cell phones; around Rs. 2.22 trillion were to be used for debt servicing; changes were made to the progressive taxation system, with no taxes to be deducted on people with annual incomes of up to Rs. 400,000; Rs. 25 billion were allocated for the health and medical sector under the Public Sector Development Programme, which would include several new projects; tax cuts were announced for the agriculture and dairy farming sectors; another Rs. 2.6 billion were announced for the

National Accountability Bureau The National Accountability Bureau (; abbreviated NAB) is Pakistan's anti-corruption agency. Its chairman is Nazir Ahmed Butt, a retired general. History The Ehtesab Act, 1997 established an Ehtesab Cell, charged with the investigation and pr ...

, which include employee expenses; all provinces were to get a total of Rs. 2.59 trillion as part of their share in the federal revenues; Rs. 18.2 billion would be spent on the fencing of the Afghanistan–Pakistan barrier on the border; Rs. 130 billion worth of additional levies were slapped on petroleum products; and finally, smaller expenses were announced for setting up a media development and television monitoring system. The budgets for the President and Prime Ministerial residences, borne out of tax-payers funds, had also risen notably.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:2018-19 Pakistan federal budget Pakistani budgets Nawaz Sharif administration Pakistan federal budget Pakistan federal budget federal budget federal budget