01/12/2020
Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected Rs. 1688 billion net revenue in the current Fiscal Year from July to November against target of Rs. 1669 billion whereas revenue collected was Rs. 1623 billion in the previous year. Income Tax collection for July to November stood at Rs. 577 billion. Similarly, collection of Sales Tax, Federal Excise Duty, Customs Duty remained at Rs. 743 billion, Rs. 104 billion and Rs. 264.4 billion respectively. FBR has collected gross revenue of Rs. 1773 billion in the first five months from July to November which was Rs. 1664 billion in the previous year thus showing an increase of Rs. 109 billion in the current year. For the month of November only, the total collected revenue stood at Rs. 347 billion against the target of Rs. 348 billion.
In the first five months of current Fiscal Year, refunds to the tune of Rs. 80 billion against only Rs. 41 billion last year have been issued, which has greatly helped boost the economic activity in the country. The refunds issued during the month of November this year are over Rs. 17 billion which were Rs. 4 billion in the corresponding month last year. Despite increase in refunds, FBR has still managed to cross the revenue collection of November last year.
During the first five months of current Fiscal Year, smuggled goods worth Rs. 27 billion have been seized as compared to seizures of Rs. 18 billion during the corresponding months of 2019.
FBR’s appreciable performance is despite the fact that the economy has been sluggish in the wake of on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, the Government had extended significant tax relief measures to the public in the Finance Act, 2020.
FBR is fully geared towards automation, e-audit, and simplification of procedures, e-payment of duty draw back so as to add to Ease of Doing Business (EoDB). FBR has launched a single page simplified Income Tax Return for SME manufacturers. FBR has upgraded Iris system for issuing SMS and e-mails whenever any notice is issued or any assignment is created by Tax Officer. FBR has launched a system Maloomat-TaxRay wherein taxpayers’ can access all information available with the FBR by logging through a secure mechanism. For further facilitation, this feature has been launched in mobile app, Tax Assan, so that taxpayers’ can easily access all such information. FBR has appealed the taxpayers to avail these facilitative measures and ensure filing Annual Income Tax Returns by the last date i.e. 8th December, 2020.
