ISLAMABAD             -        The government’s non-tax revenues had enhanced to Rs1.45 trillion in last fiscal year mainly due to the massive surplus profit of State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).

The increase in non-tax revenues had helped the federal government in restricting budget deficit at Rs3.376 trillion in fiscal year ending June 30, 2020 or 8.1 pc of GDP. 

The government had projected to generate Rs1.2 trillion from the non-tax revenues in fiscal year 2019-20. However, the massive surplus profit of SBP had taken the non-tax revenues to Rs1.45 trillion.

The documents of ministry of finance showed that government had received Rs935.5 billion through profit of SBP as against the projected Rs406 billion. In non-tax revenues, the government had collected Rs105.2 billion through markup on public sector entities and others. Similarly, Rs127 billion had been collected as profit of Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA). 

The government had accumulated Rs79.4 billion as royalties on oil and gas and Rs40 billion as dividend. The government has collected Rs26.1 billion as markup of provinces, Rs14.2 billion as defence receipts, Rs17.7 billion as passport fee, Rs12.98 billion as discount retained on crude oil, Rs5.2 billion as windfall levy against crude oil, Rs3.25 billion on petroleum levy on LPG and Rs81.3 billion as others. 

Officials informed that non-tax collection would have further increased if government completed privatization programme in last financial year. The government had projected to generate Rs150 billion through privatization programme in budget for the year 2019-2020. 

Later, it had decided that privatization of 6 public sector entities and selling 28 government owned properties will generate around Rs400 billion before June 2020. However, the government had not completed the privatization programme due to the outbreak of Covid-19.

The increase in non-tax collection had offset the tax collection shortfall in previous fiscal year. The federal government had downward the tax collection target several times in previous fiscal year. 

Initially, the federal government had set tax collection target at Rs5.55 trillion for the last financial year. But it was revised downward to Rs5,238 billion after first review of IMF under $6 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF) programme. 

However, the FBR has struggled to achieve its monthly targets, which led to further reduce the target to Rs4.8 trillion. Later, after Covid-19, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) further slashed down the FBR’s tax collection target to the tune of Rs3,907 billion for outgoing fiscal year. 

The government had missed its initial tax collection target of Rs5.55 trillion by Rs1.647 trillion during ongoing financial year.