The Federal Minister for Science and Technology Chaudhry Fawad Hussain has criticized the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) formula regarding tax credit terming it ‘absurd’.

“FBR formula is absurd tax credit should go to the district where factories are established, factories in Jhelum contributes billions (of rupees) to national exchequer but tax credit goes to Islamabad /Karachi because head offices located there,” said Chaudhry in a tweet post, while sharing a screenshot of FBR Tax Directory 2018.

“We suffer environmental and infrastructure hazards but credit goes to elsewhere,” he added.

The statement comes after FBR announced that Sindh remained the highest contributor of taxes (45 percent) during the Tax Year 2018 followed by the Punjab with a contribution of 34.99 percent in the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) taxes during this period.

The FBR conducted province-wise Tax Directory analysis for year-ended June 30th, 2018 (returns filed up to September 14, 2020) based on income tax.

According to the FBR analysis, the region-wise tax collection showed 0.12 percent contribution of taxes by the Gilgit-Baltistan during tax year 2018. The Capital Territory contributed 14.77 percent in taxes during tax year 2018, and the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa contributed 3.54 percent in the FBR taxes, during the period under review.

Balochistan province contributed 1.67 percent in terms of income tax through filing of income tax returns for the tax year 2018.