ISLAMABAD   -   The Federal Board of Rev­enue (FBR) has failed to meet the original revenue target of Rs9,415 billion for FY 2023-24. However, it successfully met the revised target and collected Rs9,306 billion, surpassing the adjusted goal of Rs9,252 billion.

The original revenue collec­tion target for the FY 2023-24 was Rs9,415 billion, however, the FBR has collected Rs9,306 billion which is Rs109 billion less than the original target.

A press statement issued by the FBR said that the board has collected Rs9,306 billion in FY 2023-24 against the target of Rs9,252 billion, thereby exceed­ing the yearly target by a signifi­cant margin of Rs54 billion. The revenue is expected to further increase after reconciliation of figures. The revenue is expected to further increase after recon­ciliation of figures. The growth in revenue collection is 30 per­cent as compared to the last year, said the FBR in statement released here Sunday.

According the statement, this became possible due to historic collection throughout the current financial year. It is a striking fact that FBR has add­ed Rs2,142 billion during the year as compared to the last year collection of Rs7,164 bil­lion and Rs1,183 billion in the month of June 2024 alone. The target was achieved despite the fact that the imports were further compressed from $55 billion to $53 billion, whereby all the shortfall was to be re­covered from domestic taxes.

In addition to exceeding the annual target, the tax system of Pakistan saw significant structural improvements which were direct result of the inter­est of the Hon’ble Prime Minis­ter and Finance Minister. This is a direct consequence of policy shift with increased focus on domestic resource mobilisa­tion, more direct taxation from the rich and affluent and facili­tating businesses and exporters by prompt issuance of refunds.

Under the Prime Minister’s directives, the FBR disbursed refunds amounting to Rs 469 billion during the FY 2023-24 as compared to Rs331 billion during the FY 2022-23 which is 42 percent higher than last year. Due to focus on direct taxes of the government, the revenue collection target was achieved mainly due to growth in direct taxes which led the way by contributing 47 percent to the revenue collection. The domestic taxes also improved significantly and overall, FBR collected Rs6,128 billion in domestic taxes and Rs3,178 billion in import taxes thereby depicting a growth of 37 per­cent in domestic taxes and 18 percent in imports despite import compression from $55 billion last year to $53 billion during the current year. 

The composition of domestic taxes in total revenue collection is 65 percent which used to be less than 50 percent two years ago. For the FY 2023-24, FBR collected income tax amounting to Rs4,528 billion as compared to Rs3,270 billion during the same period last year, depicting an increase of 38.4 percent. Sim­ilarly, under the head sales tax Rs3,098 billion was collected as compared to Rs2,593 billion and under the head FED Rs576 billion was collected as com­pared to Rs370 billion. The rev­enue collection under the head of Customs Duty was Rs1,104 billion as compared to Rs931 billion during the previous fis­cal year. It is also reiterated that for the assigned revenue collec­tion target for the FY 2024-25 the team FBR is ready to deliver and put in their best efforts to achieve it and serve the nation, the statement further said.