FBR tax collection surpasses targets in first month of 2020-21

ISLAMABAD: Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Thursday announced to achieve tax targets set for the first year of the fiscal year 2020-21, ARY NEWS reported.

“We have collected Rs 300 billion in July, surpassing the tax targets by Rs 57 billion,” the FBR spokesman said while terming the collection as 125 percent of the tax targets.

We received an excess amount of Rs 52 billion from the Inland Revenue and Rs 5 billion additional amount in terms of customs duty, the tax collection body said.

We have also given a relief of Rs 25 billion under customs duty, said the spokesman, and further added that the business community was also given refunds of Rs 15 billion in terms of inland revenue in July this year, a figure more than double from the same month of the previous year.

On July 01, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) announced that it has collected Rs82 billion more than the revised tax collection target for the fiscal year 2019-20.

According to the FRB spokesman, the tax collection body collected net revenue of Rs 3,989 billion, which is Rs82 billion more than the revised target of Rs 3,907 billion for the outgoing fiscal year.

He said that the gross revenue amount for the outgoing year stood at Rs 4,123 billion, crossing the Rs4,000 billion mark for the first time in the country’s history. “Last year, the gross revenue stood at Rs 3,895 billion,” he said.

The FBR official said that despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the income tax collection witnessed a growth of five percent, sales tax nine percent and excise duty saw a growth of seven percent.

“We have also made tax refunds of Rs 235 billion, 340 percent more than the previous year which saw refunds of Rs69 billion,” he said.

The spokesman said that customs duty collection remained low during the outgoing year mainly due to intentional efforts to discourage unnecessary imports aimed at balancing the trade deficit.