ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) tax collection went up 3.8 percent to Rs1,688 billion in the first five months (July-November) of the current fiscal year, compared to Rs1,623 billion collected in the same period of the last fiscal year, a statement said on Tuesday.
The collection was higher than the FBR’s targeted Rs1,669 billion, as per its statement. The FBR envisaged an annual tax collection target of Rs4,963 billion for financial year 2020-21 against tax collection of Rs3,997 billion for fiscal year 2019-20.
The revenue body requires around 20 percent growth in order to materialise its desired tax collection target by June 30, 2021.
The board had placed its target on the lower side for July-December 2020/21 on the basis of an assumption that economic activities would be normalised in the second half of the current fiscal year, but the world now faces the second wave of Covid-19, which makes economic revival uncertain.
The IMF assessed that at the existing pace, the FBR would not achieve its desired revenue collection target. So, additional revenue measures in the shape of mini budget through finance bill or presidential ordinance might be on the cards.
Income tax collection for July-November stood at Rs577 billion. Similarly, collection of sales tax, federal excise duty, and customs duty remained at Rs743 billion, Rs104 billion, and Rs264.4 billion, respectively. FBR has collected gross revenue of Rs1,773 billion in the first five months during the period under review, compared to Rs1,664 billion in the previous year. It shows an increase of Rs109 billion in the current year.
For the month of November only, the total collected revenue stood at Rs347 billion against the target of Rs348 billion.
In the first five months of the current fiscal, refunds to the tune of Rs80 billion against only Rs41 billion last year have been issued, which has greatly helped boost economic activity in the country.
The refunds issued during the month of November this year are over Rs17 billion, which were Rs4 billion in the corresponding month last year. Despite increase in refunds, FBR still managed to cross the revenue collection target of November last year.
During the first five months, smuggled goods worth Rs27 billion have been seized as compared to seizures of Rs18 billion during the corresponding months of 2019.
FBR’s appreciable performance is despite the fact that the economy has been sluggish in the wake of the 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 draw back so as to add to ease of doing business (EoDB).
FBR has launched a single page simplified Income Tax Return for SME manufacturers.
It has also upgraded 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 a system Maloomat-TaxRay wherein taxpayers’ can access all information available with the FBR by logging through a secure mechanism.
For further facilitation, this feature has been launched in the mobile app, Tax Assan, so that taxpayers’ can easily access all such information.
FBR has appealed the taxpayers to avail these facilitative measures and ensure filing annual income tax returns by the last date ie December 8, 2020, the statement concluded.