DPO Mardan recommends Sehat Cards for families of martyrs

PESHAWAR: The Mardan police have recommended Sehat Insaf Cards for the families of the policemen who have sacrificed their lives during the duty.

A letter by District Police Officer (DPO) Mardan Sajjad Khan to Regional Police Officer (RPO) Mohammad Ali Gandapur stated that meetings with the families of the martyred policemen were being held to know about the problems they are facing.

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Massive revenue shortfall of Rs300b projected

By Our correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Despite attracting additional amount through tax amnesty scheme, the FBR has projected massive shortfall in tax collection in the range of close to Rs300 billion for achieving revised annual tax collection target of Rs4,150 billion on June 30, 2019.

The FBR is maximising its efforts to jack up collection up to Rs3,850 billion in the outgoing fiscal year on June 30, 2019 against Rs3,842 billion in the same period of the last financial year 2017-18. The tax collection on Friday (June 28) stood at Rs3,720 billion and normal collection in the system showing in pipeline stood at Rs60 billion. The FBR expects Rs30 billion to Rs40 billion through amnesty scheme so efforts are underway to cross tax collection of last fiscal year and touched Rs3,850 billion on June 30, 2019.

It means that the FBR is expecting around Rs300 billion shortfall for achieving the assigned target of Rs4,150 billion.

The FBR explains reasons for this shortfall in writing and conveyed to Finance Ministry that taxation is dividend of economy and is, therefore, dependent upon various macroeconomic indicators including GDP growth, Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM) growth, imports etc. The GDP growth remained at 3.29 percent against the ambitious target of 6.2 percent and LSM shows decline of 2.06 percent in first eight months while the State Bank of Pakistan is following concretionary policy to anchor the aggregate demand and address rising inflation on the back of high fiscal and current account deficits.

The revised target for Inland Revenue (IR) that included income tax, sales tax and federal excise duty stood at Rs3,415 billion and the FBR had collected Rs2,711 billion from July to May in 2018-19 and projected collection for June 2019 stood at Rs325 billion so total projected collection might go to Rs3,036 billion. However, after amnesty scheme this collection might further increase by Rs30 to 40 billion but the overall collection could hardly cross the target of previous fiscal year. It might cross Rs3,850 billion maximum.

Major reasons responsible for decline in import stage collection: The FBR states that the sales tax on POL products, vehicles and betel nuts at import stage declined by Rs72 billion, decline in dutiable imports in dollar terms slashed down by negative 11 percent, loss of customs duty on tariff and non-tariff measures resulted in decline of Rs33.5 billion.

Major factors for decline in domestic collection included reduction in government spending and overall construction work resulted in Rs50.2 billion shortfall in taxes from contracts and supplies, loss of Rs57.9 billion occurred due to reduction of salary taxation through Finance Act 2018, a shortfall of Rs38.5 billion due to Supreme Court decision to suspend withholding tax on mobile phone cards (which has now been restored by the SC) and lower tax rates for of sales tax on petroleum products resulted in shortfall of Rs133 billion both at domestic and import stage.

Customs Duty vs collection target: The assigned target for collection of customs duty is Rs735 billion for 2918-19 which is 21 percent higher than previous financial year collection of Rs608 billion. The customs duty target for July-May 2018-19 was Rs637 billion against which the net collection up to May 2019 stood at Rs614.7 billion with a growth rate of 15.9 percent. However, growth in dutiable imports value in month of May is negative 21 percent against which the growth in customs duty collection is 2.4 percent.

Sales Tax Collection for 2018-19: During July-May 2018-19 the sales tax collection at import stage stood at Rs724 billion as compared to Rs742 billion collected in corresponding period of previous fiscal year. The decline on High Speed Diesel (HSD) in collection stood at Rs26.4 billion, motor spirit Rs16.3 billion, furnace oil Rs15.3 billion and less sales tax on vehicles and betel net Rs14.2 billion, totaling the amount of Rs72.2 billion.