ISLAMABAD - Federal Board of revenue (FBR) has claimed that 3,73,877 new taxpayers filed their returns in the tax year 2019.

“Up to February 29th 2020, total returns for tax year 2019 were 2,483,866 whereas 373,877 new taxpayers paid taxes in tax year 2019,” the FBR stated in a press release. It further said that revenue has grown by 17 percent with additional revenues of Rs.345 billion over last year. In the current Fiscal Year 2019-20, out of target of Rs.920 billion for the period from July to January, 2020, the FBR has accumulated Rs. 897.5 billion Income Tax which shows an increase of 18.1 percent compared to the corresponding months in the last year in which Rs. 759.1 billion could be collected.

Likewise, the target of sales tax collection till January, 2020 was set as Rs.1039 billion. Out of this target, the net collection of Rs. 996.6 billion have been accumulated which showed a growth of 24.7 percent compared to the corresponding period in the last year in which Rs. 799.1 billion were collected. The Federal Excise Duty of Rs. 145.1 billion was collected against the target of Rs. 151 billion from July to January which showed an increase of 23.6 percent. The customs duty collection target was set as Rs 399 billion till January, 2020. The FBR managed to collect Rs. 373.8 billion compared to Rs. 390.6 billion last year in the same months. So far FBR has collected Rs. 2407.7 billion against the target of Rs. 2509 billion which has increased by 16.7 percent compared to last year when Rs. 2062.7 billion were collected.

The domestic tax collection has also increased by 28 percent. Domestic sales tax has also increased by 41 percent during July 2019 to January 2020. The total domestic revenue of Rs. 1339.91 billion has been collected compared to last year’s 1057.60 billion. Revenue at import stage has grown by 6 percent against budgeted target of 36.8 percent.

FBR has issued Rs. 54 billion of additional refunds this year compared to last year. The total refunds of Rs. 131.01 billion have been released till January 2020 whereas in the last year the refunds of Rs. 76.71 billion were issued. FBR has also released the refunds detail issued through FASTER system. The total number of refunds claims cases where Annex-H submitted were 6081 with a claimed amount of Rs. 37614 million. The FASTER system has processed 4606 cases with a claimed amount of Rs. 33364 million showing percentage of 89.99percent of total cases. After the processing of such cases, total refunds of Rs. 29303 million have been issued showing a percentage of 87.47 percent of processed cases. Through the FASTER system, Rs. 4061 million were deferred due to want of required data.