ISLAMABAD - The seriousness of the incumbent government to address the economic challenges could be judged from the fact that Finance Ministry has yet to inform the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officially about downward revision of tax collection target for the ongoing financial year 2013-2014.
Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar in early March 2014 had informed the media that the government has revised the revenue collection target downward to Rs 2345 billion from budgeted target of Rs 2475 billion after facing huge revenue shortfall.
“The finance ministry has not askedthe FBR to revise the tax collection target yet and it (FBR) has still the target of Rs 2475 billion”, said Shahid Hussain Asad, Member (Inland Revenue-Policy), who is also official spokesman of the FBR while talking to The Nation. “We have been informed by other unofficial ways regarding downward revision in annual tax collection target,” he added.
Talking about the revenue collection target, Shahid Hussain said, “FBR has collected Rs 1575 billion during first nine months (July-March) of the current fiscal year 2013-2014, a growth of over 16 per cent”. He informed that FBR has collected Rs 212 billion in the month of March. The tax collection target for March was Rs 215 billion. FBR has faced huge shortfall of Rs 105 billion so far.
It is worth mentioning here that the government had revised down tax collection target by Rs 130 billion to Rs 2345 billion from Rs 2475 billion after facing massive shortfall of above Rs 100 billion in eight months (July-February) of the FY2014. Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar held the officials of the FBR responsible for revising the tax collection target. He informed the media in a briefing last month that tax officers informed the finance ministry before last budget that FBR would collect Rs 2007 billion during last financial year 2012-2013, which was set as base for the tax collection target of Rs 2475 billion for the ongoing year. However, the FBR accumulated only Rs 1940 billion in previous year, disturbed the base year that resulting in massive shortfall. The FBR now has to collect to Rs 770 billion in remaining quarter (April-June) of the ongoing fiscal year to achieve the revised tax collection target of Rs 2345 billion, which is still mammoth target for the tax department. Sources informed that FBR has formulated a strategy to achieve Rs 770 billion in last quarter of FY2014. The revised revenue collection target for April 2014 is Rs 196.3 billion, May 2014 Rs 219.5 billion and revised revenue collection target for June 2014 is Rs 359.2 billion.