Revenue authority collects over Rs200bn tax

LAHORE: The Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) has surpassed twice upwards revenue collection target for the fiscal year 2022-23 ending on June 30 of Rs197 billion and expected to cross the collection of Rs200 billion.

This will be the highest ever tax revenue collection made by the any provincial revenue collection agency of across the country to collect Rs200 billion taxes in a tax year without any input adjustment.

According to the provisional revenue figures, the collection stands Rs26.5 billion higher than the revenue generated of Rs170.5 billion for the financial period 2021– 2022.

According preliminarily figures, the PRA has collected Rs198 billion till June 27, 2023 while over Rs2 billion revenue receipts are yet to be reflected to the accounts of the authority.

Other than Rs200 billion taxes, the PRA has also collected Rs4.5 billion for Punjab Workers Welfare Fund (PWWF) as a revenue collecting agent of the Punjab Labour Department. By including this amount, the total revenue collection crossed the Rs204.5 billion mark.

The Punjab government has upwards revised the revenue collection target for the PRA twice in the fiscal year.

The last upward revision was made before June and fixed at Rs197 billion from Rs195 billion target. Initially, assigned Rs190 billion as its target which was later revised to Rs195 billion and finally Rs197 billion. The monthly provisional revenue figures up to 27 June 2023 stands at over Rs23 billion which is 38 percent higher than the collection of Rs16.7 billion generated for corresponding period of the last year i.e., June 2022.

The PRA has collected the over Rs200 billion revenue without the Rs15 billion in input tax adjustment which was due from FBR in ongoing fiscal year 2022-23.

However, the PRA is now expecting to get this input adjustment amount in the first quarter of the next fiscal year which will helpful in achieving Rs 80 billion revenue target fixed by the caretaker government for the authority in the first four months of the fiscal year (July-October) as announced in the budget.

According to an official of the PRA, the achievement of collecting huge tax of over Rs200 billion is beyond imaginary if compared to the economic situation of the country where the overall growth of services remained at 0.86 percent. In the last quarter, the Authority relied on taxpayer facilitation as well as effective enforcement to regular non-compliant taxpayers which resulted in generating higher amount of tax collection.

This is the fourth successive year in which PRA surpassed its revenue collection target and hopefully shall become the first provincial revenue collecting agency in the country to cross the psychological barrier of Rs200 billion, further establishing itself as the leading Provincial revenue collecting agency in the country.