Sindh Revenue Board (SRB) has collected Rs 21.5 billion in the head of Sales Tax on Services (over more than 10 months of the current fiscal year while its target for 2011-12 is Rs 25 billion, Business Recorder learnt on Friday.
Officials said that SRB collected Rs 7.6 billion from telecommunication sector, Rs 3.1 billion from Insurance sector, Rs 2.23 billion from Banks sector, Rs 0.7 billion from Restaurants, cafes and caterers sector, Rs 0.57 billion from courier sector, Rs 0.443 billion from stevedores, Rs 0.35 billion from hotels, Rs 0.329 billion from custom agents and Rs 1.2 billion from withholding sector. However, SRB collected the rest of the amount from other minor sectors, they added.
In this connection, a senior SRB official said that Sindh would achieve its target of Rs 25 billion before the end of the fiscal year, reminding that it had already collected Rs 21.5 billion over the past 10 months. "Our monthly average collection is Rs 2.3 billion and we will achieve the target in July this year. The target may even be surpassed if the federal government returns Sindh's Rs 1.5 billion that was collected by the FBR in FED mode in the early months of the outgoing fiscal year," he said.
He said that the federal government, despite repeated promises, had not returned the money to the Sindh government. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah had also written a letter to federal Finance Minister Abdul Hafiz Shaikh but he had so far received no response in this regard, he added. He said that the SRB would achieve its revenue target despite a shortage of staff and technical facilities. At present, he said, SRB was collecting May's Sales Tax on Services, adding that it would start collecting Sales Tax on Services for June in July.