ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar threw the gauntlet of chasing a revenue target of Rs 10 trillion for the fiscal year 2023-24 instead of Rs9.4 trillion to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) team headed by its new Chairman Amjad Zubair Tiwana during his visit to the board’s headquarters on Wednesday.
During his visit, Dar extended felicitations to Tiwana on assuming the charge of the FBR chairman and expressed confidence that he would work hard to achieve the revenue target for 2023-24.
The finance minister congratulated the FBR team for achieving the July 2023 revenue target of Rs539 billion. The finance minister further encouraged the FBR team to work with dedication and provide maximum facilitation to the taxpayers.
FBR surpasses July revenue collection target
“I do not want to scare the new FBR chairman, but the FBR should try to chase the target of Rs10,000 billion instead of Rs9,400 billion for 2023-24. Under the leadership of the new FBR chairman, the FBR should achieve the five-digit target and not the four-digit target. The FBR team has every capability to achieve the assigned target but also go for the figure of Rs10,000 billion,” Dar said.
Through enforcement, plugging the leakages and broadening the tax base, the FBR can meet the figure of Rs10,000 billion, the finance minister said.
Dar said that we need to improve the reputation of the FBR through the facilitation of taxpayers. The FBR needs to bring more transparency and ease for the general public.
Finance Minister Dar has commended the FBR for collecting Rs7,169 billion against the target of Rs7,200 billion during the last fiscal year. The negligible shortfall of 31 billion rupees is due to import compression and spending in foreign currency.
He said we need to work with more strength and cohesion to achieve the aggressive target for the fiscal year 2023-24 which is 9-10 trillion rupees.
Dar stated that “the FBR was named as the friendly board of revenue in the past by the business community. I do not know whether the said trend continued after 2017 or not. The FBR should facilitate the taxpayers to again get the name of the friendly board of revenue”.
He stated that government efforts paid dividends when everyone was talking about the default of Pakistan and the country’s foreign exchange reserves have been increased to $14 billion. He said that the country would not default, “this is my firm belief”. He said that the current account deficit of $17.7 billion in 2021-22 and over $19 billion in 2017-18 was not sustainable.
He said that the country’s foreign exchange reserves have increased to $14 billion and would improve further. He said this was possible due to stringent measures taken after February 2023 talks with the Fund for review. He said that the government’s priority was to meet external obligations and all of them were met in time.
Pakistan Sovereign Fund has been approved from the Senate and only seven assets were included in the fund with three related to the Petroleum Ministry, three Finance Ministry related, and one Power Ministry related. The finance minister said that Pakistan is an asset-solvent country with huge assets as opposed to $100 billion debt, so the question of the default of the country does not arise.
During the meeting, issues such as plugging revenue leakages, budget/current account deficits and broadening of tax base came under discussion. The finance minister also called for intensifying the enforcement measures to eradicate the menace of smuggling.
The FBR chairman affirmed the Board’s commitment to make all-out efforts to meet the challenging revenue target for the ongoing financial year 2023-24.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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