ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue is on track to achieve annual collection target of Rs4,013 billion as it has recorded provisional net revenue collection of over Rs1722 billion during first half of the current financial year as against Rs1466 billion collected during the same period of the previous fiscal year, by recording an increase of around 17.5%.
According to FBR sources, these figures have been arrived at by taking reconciled figures of net revenue collected upto November, 2017 at Rs 1305 and provisional figures of Rs 417 billion for December, 2017.
Refunds during last period have been issued to the tune of Rs 58 billion as against Rs 45 billion issued during this year depicting an increase of 28% during the corresponding period of previous fiscal year. The target for the year has been fixed with an annual increase of around 19% over the previous year.
The provisional collection for the month of December 2017 was Rs 417 billion excluding collection on account of book adjustments which may range between 4 to 5 billion as against 382 billion collected during December, 2016 showing an increase of around 39 billion. Moreover, figures of collection received in the treasuries of the remote areas may further swell the revenue figures.
Federal Board of Revenue also dispelled the impression created by some reports appearing in sections of the press that the number of the returns received for the tax year 2017 has declined as compared to returns received for tax year 2016. This impression is grossly misleading as only 953,410 returns were received upto December 31, 2016, whereas 1,158, 380 returns have been received till December 31, 2017. This shows a increase of 21.5% in the number of returns received during the same period of previous fiscal year. Also, since the last date of filing of returns of the corporate sector fell on Sunday, which is a public holiday, therefore returns and tax on the basis of returns of the corporate sector has spilled over in January, 2018.