KARACHI: The Customs Appraisement-South region working under the overall supervision of the Member Customs, Muhammad Zahid, has shown extraordinary growth in the collection of Customs Duty, Sales tax, withholding tax and federal excise duty on imported goods.
The region led by the Chief Collector Abdul Rashid Sheikh, and comprising of the Model Customs Collectorates of East, West & Port Qasim have surpassed the figure of Rs.1.0 trillion by collecting Rs.1004 billions by the 2nd week of June with fifteen more days still to go until the end of the financial year.
This constitutes about a third of the revenue target of FBR which is set at Rs3.621 trillion for the current year. The amazing feat was achieved by the South region through concerted efforts by improving the quality of assessments, controlling mis-use of exemptions, maintaining transparency and facilitation of the genuine trade and tax payers.
The efforts are indicative of special measures undertaken to bring significant improvement in the performance metrics of the region when compared in terms of growth in the volume of import versus the increase in revenue collection.
The Appraisement-South has achieved a highly robust growth of 20% over the revenue collection of the financial year 2015-16 with growth in Customs Duty of 24%, Sales Tax 19%, Income Tax 13% and FED 17%.
While, in the same period the volume of imports measured by the value of imports has registered a growth of 12.5% over the year 2015-16. The growth in taxes shows the increased efficiency in collection by the Appraisement South by controlling revenue leakages and taking preventive measures against revenue loss.
For the first time in the history of FBR a single field unit has crossed the psychological benchmark of Rs.1.0 trillion revenue collections. Last year too, the Appraisement-South had surpassed the target for financial year 2015-16 by phenomenal amount of Rs85 billion. The total collection last year was Rs.902 billion against the target of Rs.817 billion registering a staggering growth of 25% over previous year.
In just two years, Appraisement-South has taken the revenue collection from 730.6 billion in FY 2014-15 to an expected figure of over Rs.1055 billion registering an increase of 45%.