ISLAMABAD: Sales tax (domestic/local stage) collection from sugar increased from Rs16.490 billion during first six months (July-December) 2019-20 to Rs30 billion in the same period of 2020-21, reflecting an increase of 79.9 percent.

Latest FBR data of half year report revealed sales tax (domestic) from cigarettes stood at Rs11.216 billion during July-December 2020-21 as compared to Rs9.051 billion, showing an increase of 23.9 percent.

According to the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) report on taxes performance 2020-21, the collection of sales tax domestic is concentrated in few commodities.

The major commodities are petroleum products, electrical energy, textile sector, sugar, food products, cigarettes, cement, aerated water/beverage, and iron and steel products.

The share of major 15 items has jumped from 65.8 percent to 69.4 percent, showing greater concentration on fewer items.

The POL products including oil refineries, oil marketing and oil exploration is the top revenue contributor of sales tax domestic.

Second major item is electrical energy with around 15 percent share in sales tax domestic collection.

The share of sugar has increased from 3.8 percent to 5.7 percent, cotton yarn 3.3 percent to 4.5 percent, and cement from 2.5 percent to 3.2 percent.

As far as the growth is concerned, collection from oil marketing companies grew by around 271 percent, sugar 80 percent, cotton yarn 62.2 percent, cement 51.5 percent, and electrical energy 40.8 percent.

Whereas, the items such as oil refinery, oil exploration and withholding agents sector witnessed a negative growth.

The report stated that the overall net collection of Sales Tax Domestic (STD) was Rs423.8 billion against Rs410.7 billion in the first half of 2019-20 and the net collection grew by 3.2 percent.

In absolute terms, Rs13.1 billion higher amount of revenue has been collected during July-December 2020-21 as compared to July-December 2019-20.

Top 15 commodities of sales tax import have contributed a major chunk i.e. 80 percent in STM collection.

The detailed data indicates nearly 50 percent of sales tax from imports contributed by POL products; iron and steel machinery; and plastic and animal/vegetable fats.

Like sales tax (domestic), petroleum is the leading source of sales tax collection at import stage as well.

Its share in sales tax imports is around 22 percent.

During first half of 2020-21 collection from POL products was Rs109.8 billion against Rs127.6 billion during first six months of 2019-20 reflecting a negative growth of 14.0 percent.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2021