ISLAMABAD: The FBR will have to collect Rs 772 billion in last quarter (April-June) period in order to achieve revised tax collection target of Rs 2,345 billion on June 30, 2014 which will be in line with the IMF’s envisaged target.
Although, the government has not yet officially revised downward the tax collection target of Rs 2,475 which was approved by the Parliament. If the government sticks to the initially approved tax collection target of Rs 2,475 billion then the FBR will have to collect Rs 902 billion in April-June period of 2014.
So far the FBR had collected Rs 1,573 billion during first nine months (July-March) period of the current fiscal year against a collection of Rs 1,354 billion in the same period of the last financial year, registering a growth by over 16 percent in the ongoing FY 2013-14. The FBR has collected Rs 210 billion in March as provisional figures and some few billions more might be poured into the national kitty in the next few days.
During the first nine months, the FBR collected Rs742 billion in sales tax, Rs119 billion or 19% above the previous year. The IMF had assessed that the FBR would collect Rs708 billion in sales tax. The FBR surpassed IMF’s projections as it has blocked over Rs90 billion genuine tax refunds, according to sources.
The tax authorities collected Rs597 billion in income tax, up by Rs52 billion or almost one-tenth of last year’s collection. The IMF had estimated Rs591 billion income tax collection.
However, on account of customs duties, the FBR’s collection fell even behind the IMF’s conservative assessments. The FBR collected Rs170 billion in custom duties, Rs8 billion or 5% less than the last year’s collection. The IMF has estimated Rs178 billion customs duties. The federal excise duties collection stood at Rs109 billion against Rs83 billion from last year, showing a 31% growth.
Now the FBR has adopted the policy to scrutinize withholding collection of banking sector by conducting special audit with expectation that they would find out billions of rupees demand and would be able to recover out of this created demand before June 30, 2014.
The collection was Rs210 billion short of the target, on the basis of Rs2.475 trillion target, approved by the Parliament in June last year. The IMF has already downward revised the annual target to Rs2.345 trillion. They had accurately estimated that the FBR would collect Rs1.567 trillion in nine months.
