ISLAMABAD -


The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has to collect Rs 380 billion in just one month (June) to reach the twice-revised revenue collection target of Rs 2050 billion fixed for the outgoing financial year 2012-2013.
“FBR has provisionally accumulated Rs 1670 billion during eleven months (July-May) of the outgoing fiscal year 2012-2013”, said an official of the tax department while talking to The Nation on Saturday. He further said that FBR has to collect Rs 380 billion in thirty days of June to meet the target of Rs 2050 billion. However, the official was not optimistic that whether FBR would reach Rs 2050 billion target by June 30 or not. He added that FBR has provisionally collected around Rs 170 billion in May 2013 against Rs 182 billion in May 2012, showing a decline of Rs 12 billion.
FBR is struggling from the first month of the ongoing fiscal year to achieve the target that forced the tax department to revise the annual revenue collection target. FBR has several times revised the tax collection target during the present financial year.
The budgetary target of Rs 2,381 billion was revised downward to Rs 2,191 billion for 2012-13. The FBR’s target has been further slashed to Rs 2,050 billion. However, the FBR is unlikely to achieve the twice-revised target and it is expected that government might collect Rs 2000 billion by the end of June 2013. The FBR would face massive shortfall of Rs 380 billion during the current fiscal year 2012-2013 that only would increase the budget deficit by 1.6 percent.
Meanwhile, the FBR’s spokesperson Riffat Shaheen Qazi contradicted the news that tax amnesty scheme is under consideration at FBR. The spokesperson further said that taxpayers would pay their due taxes as per law. It might be mentioned here that FBR is likely to waive off additional tax penalties and fines of those who will pay their pending taxes fully by June 30.