ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Tariq Bajwa has said that decrease in imports is main reason that led to shortfall in receivables. He said that the board collected less sales tax due to decrease in imports.
The FBR chairman was briefing Senate Committee on Finance which was held under the chairmanship of Senator Saleem Mandviwala. Bajwa said that that almost Rs 210 billion refunds are still payable by FBR and “we are working on different strategies to generate revenues”.
He said, “We were expecting to collect Rs 640 billion in current fiscal year but we only collected Rs 600 billion,”adding that “we recovered Rs 62.3 billion extra as compared to the collection figures of the previous fiscal year.”
Bajwa informed the meeting that FBR had already paid refunds amounting to Rs 21.5 billion while Rs 9.9 billion were paid during the same period of the last fiscal year. He said that FBR collected less amount under the head of sales tax because of a 12.5 percent decrease in imports from July to September.
Answering a question, Bajwa assured the participants that FBR computerized system will be upgraded in upcoming months. FBR chairman said that FBR is trying to bring more reforms in the procedure of tax notices.
He said that people withdrew billions of rupees from banks to avoid paying taxes, but now the board is coordinating with all the banks and taking measures to bring all these people under tax net.
