ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has notified new returns forms for salaried persons, association of persons (AoPs) companies, and business individuals for the tax year 2024. The electronic copies of returns for these categories were notified through an SRO949 of 2024 released on Thursday. Through this notification, FBR has also made amendments to the income tax rules. Through another notification SRO0950, the FBR has also issued manual income tax return forms for individuals for tax year 2024. The FBR has also subsequently made amendments in income tax rules and notified on Thursday. 210,000 SIMs blocked The FBR said…
Author: Hasnain Abid Khanzada
• Hearing on Rs700bn electricity tariff increase on 8th • Protected consumers face 51pc rise • Real applicable average national tariff to hit Rs65-72 per unit ISLAMABAD: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has called a public hearing on July 8 on the question of passing on more than Rs700 billion additional burden to electricity consumers during the current fiscal year by jacking up the average national tariff by around Rs5.72 per unit. The increase would significantly impact the sale rate for poor protected consumers with a rise of over 51 per cent. This tariff hike, effective July 1,…
ISLAMABAD: The Competition Commission of Pakistan (CCP) has green-lighted a merger within the cross-border remittances and currency exchange business. An official announcement of the CCP said the approved transaction entails the acquisition of certain assets of Wall Street Exchange Company (Pvt) Ltd (WSE) by UBL Currency Exchange (Pvt) Ltd (UCE) pursuant to a letter of intent (LoI) and later through asset purchase arrangement (APA). UCE, recently incorporated as a currency exchange company, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of United Bank Ltd. WSE, involved in remittance-related facilitation to individuals and corporate entities, started its operations in December 2003 after getting a licence…
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Power Awais Ahmed Khan Leghari on Thursday said that all power distribution companies (Discos) would be privatised in one and a half years. “There were flaws in the distribution companies, and we are committed to fixing the system to provide relief to consumers,” the minister told a private television channel. “We had to face Rs600 billion losses due to distribution companies,” he added. In reply to a question about the tariff categories, he said lifeline customers would pay Rs7.65 and protected customers Rs20.48 from July 1. The consumers who are falling in the third category are…
LONDON: A British teacher who had sex with two teenage students and had a baby with one of them was sentenced on Thursday to six and a half years in jail. Rebecca Joynes, 30, was on police bail for sexual activity with one victim, identified as Boy A, when she began having sex with the second, Boy B, by whom she became pregnant. Sentencing Joynes, a judge said she had been a “high achiever” who had thrown her career away and had her baby taken away from her through her own actions. Joynes groomed the schoolboys from the age of…
BENI: Militia fighters attacked a Chinese-linked mining site in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo on Wednesday, killing six Chinese nationals and at least two Congolese soldiers, local officials said. China condemned the attack, which took place in Djugu territory, in the gold-rich Ituri province. Djugu administrator Ruphin Mapela said it was carried out by the CODECO (Cooperative for the Development of the Congo) militia. It is mainly made up of fighters from the Lendu ethnic group, which they claim to defend. Six Chinese nationals and two Congolese soldiers guarding the site were killed, Mapela said. The Red Cross representative for…
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will host the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) heads of governments’ meeting in October, Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch announced at her weekly media briefing on Thursday. “Pakistan holds the rotating Chairmanship of the SCO Council of Heads of Government (CHG), which is the SCO’s second-highest decision-making forum. In this capacity, Pakistan will be hosting the SCO Heads of Governments Meeting in October this year,” Ms Baloch said. The two-day meeting has been scheduled for Oct 15 -16. The October meeting of the leaders of the member countries will be preceded by a ministerial meeting and several rounds…
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Hezbollah launched a big rocket and drone attack at Israel on Thursday and threatened to hit new targets in retaliation for the killing of a top commander, in the latest surge of violence in the steadily worsening conflict across the border. Sparked by the Gaza war, the conflict between Iran-backed Hezbollah and Israel has been gradually intensifying for months, raising fears of a full-scale war, which both sides have indicated they want to avoid and diplomats are working to prevent. As the latest violence played out in areas at or near the frontier — in keeping with the pattern of the…
NEW DELHI: Indian police said on Thursday they had arrested six people over a stampede at a Hindu religious event in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh this week in which 121 people were killed. The incident occurred on Tuesday in the village of Phulrai Mughal Garhi in Hathras district where about 250,000 people had gathered to listen to preacher Suraj Pal Singh, also known as “Bhole Baba”. Organisers of the event had obtained permission for a gathering of only 80,000 people, an initial police report said. Baba blamed the stampede on “anti-social elements”, but did not elaborate. The four men and…
NEW DELHI: Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar met his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Thursday in Kazakhstan where the two agreed to step up talks to resolve issues along their border, New Delhi said in a statement. India and China share a long Himalayan border, much of it poorly demarcated, and bilateral ties have been sour since a military standoff in July 2020 when at least 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed. India said Jaishankar met Wang on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Astana where they agreed that “prolongation of the current situation in the…
