FBR needs to collect Rs2,198 billion in first half of current fiscal year

FBR needs to collect Rs2,198 billion in first half of current fiscal year

KARACHI: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) is required to collect Rs2,198 billion during first half of the current fiscal year as per revised performance criteria of International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The revenue collecting agency has failed to achieve the first quarter performance criteria.

According to Country Report Pakistan released by IMF on Monday the actual performance criteria for revenue collection was Rs2,367 billion during first half (July – December) of current fiscal year, which has been revised downward by Rs169 billion to Rs2,198 billion.

This shows that the FBR will need to collect Rs590 billion in the month of December 2019 to achieve the revised performance criteria.

The FBR’s provisional collection during first five months (July – November) 2019/2020 was Rs1,608 billion.

As per IMF documents the FBR failed to achieve the first quarter (July – September) 2019/2020 target of Rs1,071 billion and its collection was at Rs964 billion.

The actual revenue collection target for current fiscal year was Rs5,550 billion. However, the indicative target as per IMF documents has also been revised downward to Rs5,238 billion.

The FBR has to raise revenue collection to Rs3,520 billion by March 2020 in order to ensure the desired target for current fiscal year.

As per IMF documents: “Tax revenue is now expected to be 0.5 percent of GDP lower than originally expected: while domestic collection is envisaged to remain strong, growing by over 25 percent y-o-y over FY 2020, growth in trade-related tax revenues is expected to remain subdued as declining imports continue to weigh on collections—more than 40 percent of total tax revenue in Pakistan is collected at the import stage.”

The FBR has been given revised Indicative Targets for end December 2019 including net tax collection to recognize the faster than expected external adjustment negatively impacting customs revenue, besides net accumulation of tax refund arrears to capture the authorities plan to reflect the end-June stock of tax refund arrears.