The government on Wednesday informed National Assembly that the revenue collection of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) stood at Rs 844 billion during July-December (2011-2012) against Rs 661 billion during the same period of the last fiscal year, reflecting a growth of over 27 percent.
Responding to a call attention notice in the House, Minister of State for Production Khawaja Sheraz Mahmood told the House that there had been a 27 percent growth in tax collection so far this year as compared to the same period of last year. He also expressed the confidence that the target to bring 0.6 million persons into the tax net during the current financial year would be achieved whereas, he added, as of the last month, notices had been issued to as many as 300,000 potential taxpayers.
About the measures to increase the revenue collection, he said it had been increased due to withdrawal of sale tax exemptions and zero-rating on certain items in the budget and other measures introduced by the government in March last year. He further said that FBR along with National Database Registration Authority (Nadra) was working on a plan to identify more taxpayers, which would also bring rich people into the tax net ultimately increasing revenue collection. The FBR has collected data of potential persons from the NADRA to bring undocumented persons into the tax net. The data would be cross-matched with the FBR's database for this purpose.
He said the FBR had taken administrative and enforcement measures to bring 600,000 potential persons into the documented regime with the help of third party information including data collected from the NADRA. The government is committed to achieving the target to bring 600,000 more taxpayers in the tax net this year.
The call attention notice was moved by PML-N's Pervez Malik, Malik Shakir Bashir Awan and others regarding the failure of the FBR to expand tax base as pledged by the Minister for Finance in his budget speech 2011. Speaker National Assembly Dr Fehmida Mirza appreciated the performance of FBR for a 27 percent increase revenue collection and also called for measures to bring the non-tax paying institutions into the tax net as soon as possible.