The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has provisionally collected Rs 1,158 billion during July-December (2014-15) against Rs 1031 billion in the corresponding period of 2013-14, reflecting an increase of 13 percent. According to the provisional data compiled by the FBR here on Wednesday, the monthly collection amounted to Rs 255 billion in December 2014 against Rs 231 billion in December 2013, showing an improvement of over 10 percent.
Sources said that the FBR has provisionally collected Rs 253 billion against the assigned target of Rs 283 billion, showing a shortfall of Rs 30 billion in December 2014. In order to meet revenue collection target of Rs 2,810 billion during 2014-15, the FBR has to collect Rs 1,653 billion in the remaining six months (January-June) of 2014-25. It is a challenging task for the tax machinery to generate an amount of Rs 1,652 billion in six months, January-June (2014-15) keeping in view performance of the tax collection machinery during first half of 2014-15.
The FBR had collected Rs 2,266 billion last fiscal year but tax machinery required a growth of 26 percent to cross the psychological barrier of Rs 2810 billion by the end of current fiscal year. Data compiled by the FBR revealed that the FBR has collected around 283 billion as sales tax at the import stage during July-December 2014-15 against the target of Rs 278 billion. The collection of Federal Excise Duty (FED) at the import stage was Rs 4.6 billion during this period against the target of Rs 4.5 billion. The collection of withholding tax on imports stood at Rs 72.5 billion during July-December 2014-15 against target of Rs 69 billion for this period. Despite low prices of POL on imports, the FBR has managed to collected Rs 135 billion as customs duty at the import stage during this period against the assigned target of Rs 137 billion.