ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has obtained approval of demands of Rs 2584.2 million from the Finance Ministry to meet the expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year 2018-19.
These demands have been put forward by the FBR and its departments i.e. Customs and Inland Revenue.
Furthermore, a source at FBR shared the details with Customs Today Wednesday that demand of Rs 37.8 million moved by the Revenue Division had also been approved by the Finance Ministry in the Finance Bill. An aggregate of demands moved by the FBR and Revenue Division mounts to Rs 2622 million.
The source said that Finance Minister Dr Miftah Ismail laid the demands of both the FBR and Revenue Division before the National Assembly and sought approval from the House which was granted. For FBR’s expenditures, the demand of Rs 441.9 was moved and approved.
Similarly, a demand of Rs 808.8 million was moved and to meet the expenditures of Customs for the next fiscal year. Moreover, a demand of Rs1333.5 million was moved and met by the House to meet the financial requirements of Inland Revenue for the upcoming financial year. Furthermore, a separate demand of Rs37.8 million was moved and granted by the House for the expenditures of Revenue Division.
Sharing further details of demands met by the Finance Ministry moved by the Finance Division, the source said that another demand of Rs 1706.1 million was also granted to meet the other expenditures of the Finance Division for the upcoming fiscal year.
A separate demand of Rs 14389.6 million was also approved to meet the development expenditures of Finance Division for the fiscal year 2018-19. Another demand of Rs 180.9 million was also met for the Finance Division. Similarly, two separate demands of Rs 529.6 million and Rs 12 million have also been approved for the Economic Affairs Division for the upcoming fiscal year.
To a question about possible impacts of the approvals of the grants on the performance of FBR, Customs and Inland Revenue departments, the official source said that all these departments had been facing problems in the execution of their professional obligations on account of shortage of human and building infrastructures; therefore, these demands would accelerate the efforts to broaden the tax net along with increasing the volume of revenue collection.
“Currently, millions of rupees are being paid as rent against the rented offices of tax authorities in different areas of the country due to shortage of building infrastructure” the source said adding, once FBR becomes self reliant on this aspect, millions of rupees will be saved and deposited in to the national exchequer which at present are being wasted on rents for rented buildings.
Similarly, in the wake of availability of adequate amount of funds with the FBR and relevant departments, the source said that all these departments would be in a position to further enhance the performance of staffers by awarding them incentives and others. The most importantly, these departments will be able to cover up the shortage of human resource by recruiting new workforce.
