Government increases GST on POL products to 22pc

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) today, on the advice of Finance Ministry, issued a notification of rise in GST on all five petroleum products.

According to sources, the decision of increasing the GST has been taken to cover the shortfall in tax revenues collected by FBR. This will put burden of additional Rs. 35 billion on people during next six months.

As per statistics, FBR has collected the amount of Rs. 1.1 trillion till December 29 and needs to raise Rs. 100 billion before month end to hit the International Monetary Fund (IMF) target of Rs. 1.195 trillion for end December.

Furthermore, FBR had estimated a revenue loss of over and above Rs. 40 billion during 2014-15 on account of sales tax and customs duty following a major reduction in prices of petroleum products.

Data revealed that petroleum products remained top revenue spinner of sales tax at local stage or in domestic consumption and contributed around 44 percent to the total sales tax’s domestic collection during 2013-14.