ISLAMABAD: Minister of State for Finance and Revenue Rana Muhammad Afzal Khan has said that Finance Ministry is planning to fix at least 13 percent increase in the revenue collection target for the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) for the upcoming fiscal year 2018-19.
“As we have doubled the revenue collection from Rs 2,000 billion to Rs 4,000 billion in last five years and entire credit goes to the FBR,” he said.
While briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue, he said that consultations with almost every stakeholder on budget finalization were ongoing on at the Finance Ministry and the FBR. The Finance Ministry and the FBR will try to incorporate almost every positive input or recommendation moved by any stakeholder in the budget.
Rejecting the criticism over the tax amnesty scheme by the opposition parties, he said that it was for the first time in the tax history of the country that salaried class had been excluded from tax net by one g. However, the FBR had concrete plans to fill in the gap being created due to exclusion of some 0.7 million salaried taxpayers from the tax net.
Furthermore, Rana said that exclusion of salaried class from the tax net would not change the voting pattern in the coming general elections because salaried class was the least interested in the national politics. This measure has been taken to expand tax base by alluring new taxpayers to the tax net through incentives.
To a question, he said that tax amnesty scheme was not designed to benefit any ‘blue eyed’ or ‘holy cow’ because no public office holder would benefit out of this scheme. Actually, the whole scheme has been designed to bring more assets from abroad to the country as well as to provide an opportunity to the non taxpayers to become part of national development by joining the tax base.
While concluding his briefing, Rana said that the tax amnesty scheme would not be a financial burden for the upcoming government as major jurisdiction and scope of the scheme was before the July first this year. He further said that Finance Ministry eyed approximately 6% GDP growth for the next fiscal year.
