Govt unlikely to change income tax slabs

KATHMANDU: The government, which is under pressure to meet the revenue target for this fiscal year, is unlikely to make any changes in the income tax slabs. The private sector had suggested the government to bring down the corporate income tax by five percentage points and also revise the individual income tax citing that it was necessary to boost the morale of the business community.

However, government is unlikely to fulfil this demand of private sector. “It is now clear that revenue collection does not increase merely by increasing the tax slab rate. We should now focus on improving the prevailing tax administration and expand the tax net rather than changing tax slabs, especially related to income tax,” said an official of the Finance Ministry, adding that the upcoming budget will be more concentrated on improving the tax administration.

The government had revised income tax slab through the budget for the ongoing fiscal year. The government had replaced the 15 per cent and 25 per cent thresholds of income tax slabs with 10 per cent, 20 per cent and 30 per cent income tax slabs.