ISLAMABAD - The government would have to collect Rs1,101 billion during next couple of months to achieve the annual tax collection target, which seems unlikely to meet.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected Rs2,520 billion taxes during ten months (July-April) of the ongoing financial year 2016-17, said an official of the FBR.

He further said that tax collection during July-April of the current fiscal year is 9 percent higher than the collection of the same period of the previous year when FBR collected Rs2,309 billion.

The government had set the budgeted revenue collection target of Rs3,621 billion for 2016-17. The government had already unofficially reduced the tax collection target to Rs3,500 billion from Rs3,621 billion due to the massive shortfall in taxes.

The FBR blames the lower oil prices, zero rating for export sectors and payment of tax refunds to exporters for missing tax collection target. Full impact of the POL prices was not passed to the common man and this caused revenue gap amounting to Rs100 billion.

The government has already revised the budget deficit target to 4.1 percent of the GDP (Rs1.376 trillion) as against the budget target of 3.8 percent of the GDP (Rs1.276 trillion) due to the shortfall in tax collection.

However, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have warned that budget deficit will be beyond 4.1 percent of the GDP during current fiscal year.

Meanwhile, the government is considering to fix tax collection target at Rs4,000 billion for the next financial year 2017-18 on the basis of Rs3,500 billion of the outgoing fiscal year.

On the basis of Rs4,000 billion tax collection target, the government is likely to fix budget deficit at 4 percent of the GDP (Rs1.44 trillion) for the next financial year 2017-18 as against revised target of 4.1 percent of the GDP of the outgoing year 2016-17.