ISLAMABAD - The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is expecting to generate additional revenue of around Rs25 billion during outgoing fiscal year due to the enforcement of new rates of federal excise duty and customs duty from the last week of the current month.

The increase in customs duties and federal excise duties rates has been enforced from the next day of Acting President Sadiq Sanjrani's consent to the Finance Bill 2018.  Two excise duty measures have also been effective. Firstly, increase in the FED on cigarette has been enforced, while the FBR has also increased federal excise duty on cement from Rs 1.25 per kg to Rs 1.50 per kg.

The cigarettes prices would increase by the around 6 percent and the prices of 50 kilogram bag of cement will further go up by Rs12.50.

The customs duties on 7,200 tariff lines have also increased by another 1pc. "We are expecting to generate around Rs25 billion from these measures during current fiscal year," said an official of the FBR.

He further said that Parliament has allowed implementing these measures before the start of new fiscal year, otherwise traders would start hoard the goods for profiteering.

The expected Rs25 billion would increase the FBR's annual tax collection target, which is already downward revised Rs78 billion.

The federal government has revised the tax collection target of FBR to Rs3935 billion for the outgoing fiscal year from the Rs4013.

The FBR during first ten months of the current financial year has recorded a provisional net revenue collection of over Rs2922 billion as against Rs2513 billion collected during the same period of the previous fiscal year, which depicts an increase of over 16 percent.

Meanwhile, the provisional collection for the month of April 2018 is Rs295 billion excluding collection  on account of book adjustments as against Rs252 billion collected during the corresponding month of the previous fiscal year.

The revenue collection trend during the first ten months of the financial year augurs well for the efforts of FBR towards achievement of the assigned revised annual revenue targets.

The government has set the tax collection target of FBR at Rs4435 billion for the next fiscal year as against Rs3935 billion of the ongoing year.