Taking lead over others, Punjab Assembly approves agriculture tax bill

• The bill includes livestock income under the agricultural tax net.
• Tax defaulters face a daily fine of 0.1% on total income.
• Governor likely to return the bill for review before it becomes law.

LAHORE: Taking the lead among provinces, the Punjab Assembly on Thursday approved the Punjab Agricultural Income Tax (Amendment) Bill 2024, despite a walkout by PPP and PTI lawmakers protesting the rejection of their proposed amendments.

The bill will now be forwarded to the governor for approval. However, sources indicate the governor is likely to return it to the assembly for further review, The News reported.

The legislation will officially become law once the assembly revisits and resends it to the governor for final assent.

According to the controversial bill, which according to the opposition had been passed to implement the IMF’s agenda, there was a need to levy "equitable" Agricultural Income Tax, in accordance with the income generated from agricultural income.

As per the legislation, the income generated from livestock owned by the farmers is also considered as the ‘agricultural income’ and be brought into the tax net.

The income, the bill states, generated from livestock will also come under the tax net. The farmers with higher income will also face tax on income after the passage of the bill.

The tax defaulters will also have to pay a total of 0.1% fine on their total income per day.

According to Punjab Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Mian Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman, a new ‘regime of agriculture’ was being established through this bill.

According to the PPP parliamentary leader Syed Ali Haider Gilani, the government had not shared with them the draft of the bill.

He added that the PPP was a pro-farmer political party, which believed that the issue of crop growers was very sensitive. No pressure on the farmers could be endorsed, said Gilani.

PTI senior legislator Rana Aftab Ahmad Khan termed it a black day for agriculture, as the sector was being taxed.

He said the opposition came up with its recommendations in the standing committee but their proposals were not made part of the report presented before the House.

Rana Aftab further said the matter of legislation was related to the law minister and not minister for parliamentary affairs.

Rana Aftab said under Article 142, tax could not be imposed on agriculture adding that under such circumstances, the bill was clashing with the Constitution.

PTI MPA from the rural side of Lahore, Ahmar Rasheed Bhatti criticised the government for passing an anti-farmer legislation.

Opposition MPA from Multan Nadeem Qureshi while speaking on the floor of Punjab Assembly opposed the passage of bill and stated that imposing 40% tax on the farmers meant their economic murder.