The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected Rs.1688 billion net revenue in the current fiscal year from July to November against a target of Rs.1669 billion. In the same period, last year, FBR collected Rs.1623 billion.
According to the FBR handout, income tax collection from July to November stood at Rs.577 billion. Similarly, collection of sales tax, federal excise duty, customs duty remained at Rs. 743 billion, Rs. 104 billion and Rs. 264.4 billion respectively. FBR has collected a gross revenue of Rs. 1773 billion in the first five months from July to November which was Rs.1664 billion in the previous year thus showing an increase of Rs.109 billion in the current year. For the month of November only, the total collected revenue stood at Rs. 347 billion against the target of Rs. 348 billion.
In the first five months of the current fiscal year, refunds to the tune of Rs. 80 billion against only Rs. 41 billion last year have been issued, which has greatly helped to boost the economic activity in the country. The refunds issued during the month of November this year are over Rs. 17 billion which were Rs. 4 billion in the corresponding month last year. Despite increase in refunds, FBR has still managed to cross the revenue collection of November last year.
During the first five months of current fiscal Year, smuggled goods worth Rs. 27 billion have been seized as compared to seizures of Rs. 18 billion during the corresponding months in 2019.
FBR’s performance is appreciable despite the fact that the economy has been sluggish in the wake of on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the government had extended significant tax relief measures to the public in the Finance Act, 2020.
FBR is fully geared towards automation, e-audit, and simplification of procedures, e-payment of duty drawback so as to add to ease of doing business (EoDB). FBR has launched a single page simplified income tax return for Small Medium Enterprise (SME) manufacturers. FBR has upgraded the IRIS system for issuing SMS and e-mails whenever any notice is issued or any assignment is created by a tax officer.
FBR has launched an by the name of ‘Maloomat-TaxRay’ wherein taxpayers’ can access all information available with the FBR. FBR has appealed the taxpayers to avail these facilitative measures and ensure filing Annual Income Tax Returns by the last date which is December 8, 2020.
