ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue's provisional revenue collection stood at Rs1,337 billion during July-October (2020-21) against the assigned target of Rs1,322 billion for the first four months of the current fiscal year, reflecting an increase of Rs15 billion.
According to the updated data of provisional revenue collection figures compiled by the FBR here on Monday, the FBR has collected taxes of Rs333 billion during October 2020 against the monthly target of Rs352 billion, reflecting a shortfall of Rs19 billion.
According to the FBR, it has collected Rs1,337 billion net revenue in the current fiscal year from July to October, whereas, it was Rs1,288 billion in the previous year. The breakup of tax collection revealed that the income tax collection for July to October stood at Rs470 billion.
Similarly, collection of sales tax, federal excise duty, and customs duty remained at Rs643 billion, Rs81 billion, and Rs206 billion respectively. The FBR has collected gross revenue of Rs1,400 billion in the first four months from July to October, which was Rs1,323 billion in the previous year thus, showing an increase of Rs77 billion in the current year.
During the month of October 2020, the total collected revenue stood at Rs333 billion, which was Rs325 billion in the same month last year. In the first four months of the current fiscal year, refunds to the tune of Rs128 billion against only Rs52 billion last year have been issued, which has greatly helped boost the economic activity in the country.
The refunds issued during the month of October this year are over Rs15 billion, which were Rs4.5 billion in the corresponding month last year. Despite increase in refunds, the FBR has still managed to cross the revenue collection of October last year.
The 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, and there was drop in revenues at import stage at two percent. However, the domestic revenues grew at 13 percent in these four months, which reflected taxpayers' growing confidence on the revenue measures being taken by the present government.
During the first four months of current fiscal year, smuggled goods worth Rs21.48 billion have been seized as compared to seizures of Rs13.40 billion during the corresponding months of 2019.
The FBR is fully geared towards automation, e-audit, and simplification of procedures, e-payment of duty draw back, so as to add to the Ease of Doing Business (EoDB). Furthermore, the FBR has launched an effective crackdown against corruption, harassment, and misuse of authority. The FBR has introduced a simplified one pager Income Tax Returns for the retailers in the current tax year.
Moreover, the FBR has also uploaded Income Tax Returns in Urdu and regional languages for the retailers and salaried people. The FBR has appealed to the taxpayers to avail these facilitative measures and ensure filing to Annual Income Tax Returns before the last date i.e. 8th December, 2020, the FBR added. The revenue collection target for the month of October has been fixed at Rs352 billion. The target for July was fixed at Rs243 billion and August Rs309 billion. The tax collection target for the month of September was fixed at Rs418 billion.
The quarterly target for July-September 2020-2021 was fixed at nearly Rs970 billion to meet the annual revenue collection target of Rs4,963 billion for current fiscal year.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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