How the calculation works on PKR 1,50,000 / month
At 150,000 a month, tax stops being pocket change. That's 1,800,000 a year, which puts you in the 11% slab. The income between 1,200,000 and 1,800,000 is taxed at 11%, on top of the 6,000 carried over from the band below, so you land at 72,000 for the year, or 6,000 a month. Your effective rate is 4%, but your marginal rate is now 11%, so this is where I notice raises starting to feel the bite a little.
That works out to roughly Rs 6,000 a month deducted from your gross, leaving you with Rs 1,44,000 take-home. Your effective tax rate is 4.00%, even though your marginal rate is 11%.
What changes if you're not salaried?
By 1,800,000 a year the gap between salaried and business tax is clearly visible: the non-salaried table charges more on this band, so a freelancer or AOP on the same 150,000 pays noticeably more. The big exception is IT export work. If you're registered with PSEB, that's a flat 0.25% on foreign-currency receipts, which is far lower than either salaried or business rates.