ISLAMABAD - The Federal Board of Revenue has missed the revised revenue target for the first quarter by Rs15billion. The target for the first quarter of the current fiscal year was Rs 851 billion but FBR could have collected Rs836 billion.

However, the FBR’s provisional net revenue collection of over Rs836 billion are Rs70billion more than Rs766 billion revenue collected during the same period of the previous fiscal year, said an FBR spokesman here on SUnday.

The spokesman said the assigned revised revenue target for the first quarter is 851 billion. The increase of Rs70 billion from the corresponding period of previous financial year is despite the fact that relief measures, introduced through Finance Act, 2018, have adversely affected the revenue collection in the first quarter.

The provisional collection for the month of September 2018 stands at Rs323 billion excluding collection on account of book adjustments. The figures of collection received in the treasuries of the remote areas may further swell the revenue figures, claimed the spokesman.  The revenue collection trend during the first quarter of the financial year augurs well for the efforts of FBR towards achievement of the assigned revised annual revenue target of Rs 4398 billion.

The previous PML-N government had set the tax collection target for FBR at Rs4435 billion for the current financial year. However, the PTI government has downward revised the target to Rs4398 billion despite introducing additional taxation measures. Minister of State for revenue, Hammad Azhar has recently informed the media that total revenue impact of the new taxation measures is around Rs178 billion.

Meanwhile, the government has also proposed a number of relief measures so the net impact of revenue would be Rs120 billion. Out of Rs178 billion, Rs92 billion are those which were related to enforcement measures including avoiding smuggling and stopping illegal businesses, etc.

The PSDP releases were very slow during the first quarter of the current fiscal year which has caused slow economic activities resulting decreased revenue collection during the period.