July 1, 2011-June 15, 2012: Provisional tax collection stands at Rs1,750bn

RECORDER REPORT

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected a record amount of over Rs 70 billion in one day of June 15, 2012, reflecting day and night efforts of the tax authorities to cross the psychological barrier of Rs 1952 billion by the end of current fiscal year.

Sources told Business Recorder on Friday that the FBR has provisionally collected over Rs 1,750 billion during July 2011-June 15, 2012 against Rs 1,350 billion in the corresponding period of last fiscal year, reflecting a growth of 23-24 percent. So far, the Board has provisionally collected Rs 1,750 billion during July 2011-June 15, 2012 against the ambitious revenue collection target of Rs 1,952 billion for 2011-12.

The monthly revenue collection during first 15 days of June has reached Rs 122 billion, intensifying administrative and enforcement efforts of the tax machinery. Now the FBR has to collect nearly Rs 202 billion in the remaining 15 days of current fiscal, which is a very challenging task for the tax machinery. The one-day collection of Rs 70 billion is reflecting the efforts to recover withholding taxes and arrears along with focus on recovery of the inadmissible illegal tax adjustments. The income tax demands have been raised wherever admissible to improve revenue collection as per law.

With limited tax-base and stuck up arrears in courts to the tune of billions, the improvement in revenue collection is visible in June 2012 despite the fact that the growth in revenue collection is nearly 24 percent. However, this is for the first time in the history that rates of taxes have been drastically reduced in the budgets of 2011-12, 2012-13, but the enforcement activities with the creation of Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation Inland Revenue (IR) FBR has shown some major progress on recovery of taxes from various sectors.

As the Finance Bill (2012-13) has been passed by the Parliament, now the tax authorities are fully focused on revenue collection and FBR Chairman Mumtaz Haider Rizvi and FBR Member Inland Revenue Shahid Hussain Asad are committed to reach the assigned target of Rs 1952 billion in the next two weeks period. The tax managers are sitting late nights on daily basis to monitor the revenue collection performance of the Large Taxpayer Units (LTUs) and Regional Tax Offices (RTOs). Every day, the FBR team late night analyze the areas from where due tax has not been coming and prompt instructions have been issued to the field formations for the recovery of the amount.

The tax mangers are confident that the FBR will generate reasonable amount from the amnesty scheme announced for the claimants of illegal input tax adjustments against whom tax fraud cases have been framed by the Directorate General of Intelligence and Investigation Customs FBR. It is expected that a number of persons would avail the scheme by June 25, 2012.