ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue in the first 7 months of ongoing financial year surpassed its revenue target by Rs 50 billion and showed a growth of almost %.
According to FBR sources in July-January period of FY21, it has collected Rs 2600 billion against the target of Rs 2550 billion. Whereas it has surpassed its monthly target for January 2021 as its collection fetched Rs 364 billion against the desired monthly target of Rs 341 billion showing a growth of 12%.
A senior official of FBR said that the surpassing the revenue target is a morale booster for the government as it is about to revive the stalled IMF program very soon. He said FBR’s performance for achieving its target for January 2021 will help to restore the confidence of tax collection machinery,” said one top official of FBR. He said that now the FBR machinery could confidently convince the IMF that they would achieve the ambitious annual tax collection target of Rs 4,963 billion envisaged for the current fiscal year.
The official said that the economic activities started picking up so its impact was appearing on revenue collection efforts. “Growth in exports and Large Scale Manufacturing Sector shows that the economy is moving in the right direction” he observed. Now the FBR have to collect Rs 2,363 billion in the remaining five months (Feb to June) for displaying the desired fixed target of Rs 4,963 billion on June 30, 2021.
The FBR had collected net revenue of Rs.2,205 billion from July to December which showed a growth of 5% over Rs. 2101 billion which was collected during the same period last year. The Income Tax collection for July to December stood at Rs. 817 billion. Similarly, collection of Sales Tax, Federal Excise Duty, Customs Duty remained at Rs. 920 billion, Rs. 128 billion and Rs. 338 billion respectively. For the month of December only, the total collected revenue stood at Rs. 508 billion, which was 97.7% of the target of Rs.520 billion and showed a growth of 8.3% against 469 billion collected in last December. There is an increase of Rs. 39 billion in the revenue collection of December 2019. This is the highest monthly growth during Jul-Dec period.
In the first six months of current fiscal, refunds to the tune of Rs.102 billion were issued compared to Rs.53 billion for the same period the last year. This represents an increase of 90% in the issuance of refunds. Moreover, under the Prime Minister’s Corona Relief Package, refunds of Rs. 42 billion were also been issued this year. Despite excessive issuance of refunds this year, FBR has managed to collect significantly more revenue in comparison to last year when COVID had not disrupted the economic life. Increased refunds have greatly helped boost economic activity in the country.
However, the share of income tax in total tax collection further shrank to 36.8% and the government was burdening the economy and people with more indirect taxes. The FBR missed the income tax collection target by a wide margin. However, the sales tax collection exceeded the target by Rs75 billion and stood at Rs1.075 trillion in seven months.
