Islamabad: Federal Board of Revenue claimed on 1st April that it collected Rs 4.382 trillion in taxes during nine months of the current fiscal year but missed the target by a wide margin due to its failure to increase reliance on direct taxes.
According to the provisional information, the FBR received Rs 4.382 trillion during July-March of the current fiscal year 2021-22, showing an increase of 29% over the collection made during the same period of the previous fiscal year. It was told that it was still not enough to reach the target set for March. The current amount collected was Rs 14 billion less than what the FBR claimed in its press release.
FBR said that the number might increase above Rs 4.38 trillion once the provisional figures were finalized including the book adjustments. The FBR, recently, seized the bank accounts of the National Highway Authority and withdrew Rs 1.2 billion to recover taxes. This will also be deposited in the month’s target which will increase the numbers.
This time again the FBR’s performance was largely dependent on imports that contributed nearly 52% to the total tax collection, this uncovered the weakness of the domestic sales tax collection. This once again removed the covers from the reality which showed that the tax collection heavily relies on the imports rather than domestic sales tax collection.
During the current fiscal year, the FBR collected on average Rs 16.2 billion per day but now it needs to increase the pace to Rs 19 billion per day to achieve the annual target of Rs 6.1 trillion. This tax could become difficult with the missed monthly target by a wide margin of Rs 29 billion, according to the provisional results. Against the monthly target of Rs 604 billion, the tax collection stood at Rs 575 billion in March, according to the FBR.
