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According to Ministry of Finance sources, an extraordinary meeting of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in mid-July will authorise the loan to Pakistan underneath the seventh review of the Extended Fund Facility (EFF). The IMF"s seventh review talks are anticipated to wrap up in the first week of July.

The tax benefits provided in the Finance Bill 2022 will be eliminated, according to the sources, and the Minister of Finance, Miftah Ismail, will announce the removal of tax concessions during his closing statement at the time of budget ratification.

According to ministry sources, income tax slabs are being evaluated, and the income tax deduction is likely to be phased out. They claimed that after the federal government promised to eliminate tax breaks and raise tax rates, the IMF is now looking for documentation evidence, for which a copy of the Finance Bill would be shared with it after it is signed into law.

In response to speculations that the IMF was pressing Pakistan to renegotiate the agreements of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) Independent Power Producers, the IMF"s Resident Representative, Esther Perez Ruiz, issued a remark at a recent event (IPPs).

"The IMF did not request that Pakistan renegotiate CPEC IPP contracts," it says. These assertions are just false. Rather, the IMF backs the government"s multi-pronged approach to reviving the energy sector, which distributes the responsibility of reviving the sector among all stakeholders—government, producers, and consumers."