FBR collects Rs 151 billion in December: monthly target surpassed

Breaking all previous records of revenue collection, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) provisionally collected around Rs 151 billion in December 2010, against the target of Rs 147 billion, showing an increase of Rs 4 billion. Sources told Business Recorder here on Saturday that the FBR has made record collection despite recession, energy crisis, investment problems, law and order situation and higher interest rates.
The record direct taxes collection has enabled the FBR to amass Rs 151 billion during December 2010. Due to personal efforts and monitoring of FBR Member Direct Tax Policy Israr Rauf, the FBR has made record revenue collection with an increase of 23 percent when compared with the target. If the FBR maintained current pace of revenue collection, the tax machinery would be able to achieve the downward revised revenue collection target of Rs 1604 billion for 2010-11.
Top tax manager Israr Rauf effectively co-ordinated with the Large Taxpayers Units and Regional Tax Offices for recovery of arrears, desk audit of returns, effective implementation of the budgetary decisions and enforcement through FBR Members Domestic Operations. It is expected that more revenue would come after compilation of final figures for December 2010. The FBR has created three new RTOs in Karachi which would also be instrumental in improving revenue collection during the remaining months of current fiscal. The field formations also managed to report accurate collection figures due to proper reporting mechanism and recovery proceedings against major cases under the provisions of the Income Tax Ordinance 2001.
Break-up of monthly revenue collection showed that direct taxes provisional collection stood at Rs 69.5 billion, sales tax Rs 54.6 billion, federal excise duty Rs 9.5 billion and provisional collection of customs duty stood at Rs 17.2 billion during December 2010. All categories of direct taxes showed remarkable performance particularly Collection of Demand (COD), Voluntary Payments (VP) and Withholding Taxes (WHT), etc.
Sources said that higher inflation, slow economic growth coupled with energy crises and law and order situation are the main causes of economic problems in the country. However, despite all these negative pressures, the government endeavoured to prepare a balanced budget for the fiscal year 2010-11. Since resource mobilisation is the key factor in attaining the desired result, the FBR revenue target for FY 2010-11 has been fixed by taking a number of additional tax measures. Due to effective enforcement and compliance on the direct taxes side, the FBR was in a position to surpass the monthly revenue collection target for December 2010. The record collection of direct taxes in December 2010 also dispelled the impression that nobody is paying income tax in the country. Despite increase in payment of refunds, the direct tax collection remained as a major contributor in revenue collection during 2010-11.