Income tax on the non-salaried slab card, plus surcharge above 10M.
Total tax
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Income tax
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Surcharge
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Net income
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The steeper card that the self-employed pay
Pakistan runs two personal income-tax cards, and which one applies to you turns on a single test: is salary more than three quarters of your income? If yes, you sit on the gentler salaried card. If no, because you are a sole proprietor, a freelancer, a consultant, or part of an AOP, you fall onto the non-salaried card, and it is noticeably steeper. This calculator computes tax on that non-salaried card and adds the high-income surcharge where it applies. The card's shape, a tax-free floor followed by rising bands, is stable from year to year, but the rates and thresholds are reset every June by the Finance Act, so the figures below are the ones this calculator applies rather than permanent law. Always confirm the live numbers with the FBR for your tax year.
The tool is aimed at anyone who earns outside a payslip and has to self-assess: a shop owner, an independent designer, a doctor in private practice, a software contractor invoicing local clients. You enter your annual taxable income, the figure left after deducting allowable business expenses, and it returns your income tax, any surcharge, and the income you keep.
Marginal rate versus the rate you actually pay
The single most useful thing this tool teaches is the gap between your marginal rate and your effective rate. The marginal rate is the band your top rupee sits in, and on the non-salaried card it can reach 45 percent. The effective rate is the total tax divided by total income, and it is always lower, because the early slabs are taxed lightly or not at all. People routinely conflate the two and assume that crossing into a 30 percent band means losing 30 percent of everything, which is simply wrong. Only the slice inside that band is taxed at 30 percent. Watching the effective rate climb gently while the marginal rate jumps in steps is the clearest picture of how a progressive system treats a growing business.
A freelancer on PKR 3 million
Take an independent contractor with PKR 3,000,000 of taxable income after expenses, comfortably below the surcharge line, using the rates this calculator applies. The first PKR 600,000 is tax-free. The next PKR 600,000 is taxed at 15 percent for PKR 90,000. The PKR 400,000 above that is taxed at 20 percent for PKR 80,000. The remaining PKR 1,400,000, sitting in the 30 percent band, adds PKR 420,000. That totals PKR 590,000 of tax. The marginal rate is 30 percent, but the effective rate is only 19.7 percent, and the contractor keeps PKR 2,410,000. There is no surcharge here because income is well under PKR 10 million.
| Income band (PKR) | Rate | Tax |
|---|---|---|
| 0 to 600,000 | 0% | 0 |
| 600,000 to 1,200,000 | 15% | 90,000 |
| 1,200,000 to 1,600,000 | 20% | 80,000 |
| 1,600,000 to 3,000,000 | 30% | 420,000 |
| Total income tax | 590,000 | |
| Effective rate | 19.7% |
The surcharge cliff at PKR 10 million
One feature deserves a flag because it behaves like a step rather than a gentle ramp. Once taxable income exceeds PKR 10 million, a surcharge is added on top of the income tax, and the rate this calculator applies for it is 9 percent of the tax payable. That is a charge on the tax itself, not on income, so it compounds the slab effect for high earners. Crossing the threshold by a small margin can cost more than the extra income that took you over it, which is the classic argument for timing income or accelerating a deductible expense near year-end. If your income hovers around PKR 10 million, watch this line carefully and confirm the current surcharge rate and threshold with the FBR.
Should I enter revenue or profit?
Enter taxable income, which is profit after allowable expenses, not gross revenue. A freelancer billing PKR 4,000,000 who spends PKR 1,000,000 on software, equipment, travel and a co-working space is taxed on PKR 3,000,000, not PKR 4,000,000. Putting in turnover by mistake inflates the tax dramatically. If you are unsure which costs the law lets you deduct, the rules are in the Income Tax Ordinance and worth checking with the FBR or an accountant.
Do IT exporters and freelancers get a special rate?
Pakistan has at various times offered concessional treatment for IT and IT-enabled services exported abroad, sometimes a low fixed rate on export proceeds rather than the full slab card, conditional on registration and routing earnings through proper banking channels. That regime is separate from the ordinary non-salaried card modelled here, and its conditions change. If most of your income comes from foreign clients, look at the dedicated freelancer treatment and confirm the current export concession with the FBR before assuming the standard slabs apply.