Finance Minister says new AI-led tax model to issue notices

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Senator Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Tuesday that the current account performance remains strong due to record remittance flows. “We do expect our overall remittances for this year to close anywhere between $41 and $42 billion.” Addressing the second edition of Pakistan Banking Summit 2026 at a local hotel here, he said that the last fiscal year was closed on a strong note across all metrics, starting with the fiscal side: a primary surplus, an all-time low fiscal deficit, a debt-to-GDP ratio well below 70 percent, and GDP growth closing at 3.7 percent on the back of a strong rebound in LSM. The finance minister said we talk about the dip in exports, and indeed from the good side there is a dip, but that dip is concentrated on the food side and value added, especially on the textile side, has continued to register year-on-year. He believed that the foreign exchange reserves will close at about $18.4 billion for this fiscal year, which is higher than the estimates that had earlier. Aurangzeb said we started with the Eurobond, and the most significant trade has been the Panda Bond because we have been at it at least for the last seven to eight years, and not tapping the second largest, second deepest capital market in the world has been a miss on our part. Speaking about the Pakistan Stock Exchange, he said that the activity drivers are more important than the PSX numbers and the number of investors, which have grown, and more importantly, the Gen Z investors are coming in as well as then the corporate profitability which has returned to double digits. Referring to this year’s budget, he said that the budget for the first time was led by the Tax Policy Office, which has been moved to the Finance Division. He said, “We focused on export-led growth, removing the advance tax, removing the super tax, low-cost subsidized financing, and continuing with the tariff regime.” Aurangzeb thanked the Prime Minister and the Cabinet in this regard. He said we are also going to come up with a medium-term tax strategy. He said that the Parliament has introduced a new tax administration operating model, and it has approved the new structure because it is a new engagement model between the tax administration and the taxpayers, where human intervention is going to be minimal. He further said that it is a very fundamental change because this is a model which is AI and technology-led, and notices will be issued by it. Aurangzeb said that access to finance and therefore the banking industry will remain absolutely critical in terms of our journey from stabilization to sustainable growth. Increased lending to SMEs, exporters, agriculture, manufacturing, construction and IT industries is going to be mission-critical. He said, “I think we have moved in the right direction, but there’s a long, long way to go.” Speaking on privatization, he said that PIA is now securely in the private sector’s hands, and there are three discos, whose roadshow is also complete as well as 28 institutions that have been handed over to the Privatization Commission. He also lauded PBA and sought suggestions from the Summit.