ISLAMABAD - Adhering to its tradition of missing monthly revenue target, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) could collect only Rs 90 billion during the month of February as against the Rs 109 billion tax collection target. Israr Rauf, Member Direct Tax and official spokesman of FBR, on Wednesday informed TheNation that FBR had accumulated Rs 90 billion in February 2010 against the set target of Rs 109 billion. However, he said the figures of tax collection in February were provisional, which would be finalised in the next few days. However, the provisional tax collection in February 2010 had shown an increase of Rs 13 billion as compared to the same month of the last year. FBR had collected Rs 90b as compared to Rs 77 billion in the same period of the last fiscal year, thus showing an increase of Rs 13b. Meanwhile in the first eight months (July-February) of 2009-10, FBR collected Rs 784 billion, Israr Rauf said. According to the sources, FBR has missed the tax target by Rs 45 billion in July-February period as the target was around Rs 829 billion for the said period. It is pertinent to mention here that FBR is facing difficulties in achieving the tax target set for the ongoing fiscal year and did not achieve the desired amount of taxes even in a single month in the first eight months of 2009-10. FBR has fixed Rs 1,380 billion revenue target for the current financial year. According to the sources, Chairman FBR Sohail Ahmed a few days back briefed the Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani during his visit to FBR regarding tax target and revenue collection. The FBR officials had informed the Prime Minister that the tax collection target of Rs 1,380 billion was challenging for which the FBR was taking serious enforcement and administrative measures to improve overall revenue collection. In the month of February 2010, tax authorities collected Rs 32 billion as direct tax, Rs 39 billion as sales tax, Rs 8 billion as federal excise duty and Rs 11 billion as custom duty.