Dar urges FBR to boost tax revenue collection efforts

Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Ishaq Dar has urged the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) to enhance its tax collecting efforts so the country can achieve its true tax potential.

The development comes as Dar chaired a meeting on the FBR’s revenue performance at the Finance Division on Tuesday.

As per a statement released by the Ministry of Finance, FBR Chairman Asim Ahmad gave a detailed presentation on the revenue targets and performance for the period July 2022 to March,2023.

“It was expressed that FBR will make all out efforts to meet its targets in remaining months of the financial year,” read the statement.

Dar expressed satisfaction with the FBR and extended his full support to help it perform its revenue collection duties while maintaining that the FBR team needs to enhance efforts to unlock the country’s true tax potential.

SAPM on Finance Tariq Bajwa, SAPM on Revenue Tariq Mehmood Pasha, Chairman FBR, and other senior officers from the Finance Division and FBR attended the meeting.

Pakistan, which remains engulfed in various economic challenges, faces a low tax-to-GDP ratio. As per data provided by the country’s Ministry of Finance, Pakistan’s tax-to-GDP ratio dropped by 0.4% in the first half (July-December) of the current fiscal year to 4.4% from 4.8% of the same period last year.

Earlier, it was learnt that the federal tax collecting authority suffered a massive shortfall of Rs304 billion during July-March (2022-23).

It was learnt that Rs5,156 billion has provisionally been collected in the first nine months of the current fiscal year against the assigned target of Rs5,460 billion for July-March (2022-23), reflecting a huge shortfall of Rs304 billion.

Earlier, Dar had said that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have assured the International Monetary (IMF) they will help Pakistan.

The minister said Saudi Arabia had conveyed to the IMF $2 billion financing to Pakistan while the UAE had confirmed support of $1 billion. The Pakistani government had met all the conditionalities of the IMF for the revival of the loan agreement, he added.

He also said that all preconditions for a Staff Level Agreement (SLA) between Pakistan and the IMF have now been implemented.