FBR facing Rs220.4 bn revenue shortfall in first five months

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been facing a massive revenue shortfall of Rs220.4 billion in the first five months (July-Nov) period of the current fiscal year as the board provisionally collected Rs1,608 billion against the envisaged target of Rs1,828.4 billion.

After witnessing the increased tax shortfall, the FBR is left with no other option but to request the IMF again for revising downward the annual desired collection target of Rs5503 billion for the current fiscal year.

The FBR has also extended the deadline for filing of income tax return up to December 16, 2019. The FBR so far received 1590000 income tax returns so far against over 1060000 in the same period of the last financial year. Along with tax returns, the FBR has collected Rs3 billion during the current fiscal year.

After collection of Rs1603 billion in first five months of the current fiscal year, the FBR will have to collect Rs3895 billion in remaining seven months (Dec-June) period to display the desired target of Rs5503 billion on its board on June 30, 2020. It will highly ambitious target so the FBR has started thinking to convince the IMF during the next review mission expected to take place in first week of February 2020 for revising downward the tax collection target.

When contacted to FBR’s Member Inland Revenue Service (IRS) Policy Dr Hamid Ateeq Sarwar on Friday night he confirmed that the last date for filing of income tax returns extended up to December 16, 2019. He said that the number of return filers increased up to 1590000 as this number witnessed massive surge in attracting the desired number of return filers.

However, the sources said that the tax collection witnessed shortfall of Rs220 billion mainly because of import compression of over Rs500 billion so in such scenario it was amazing that the FBR was achieving overall growth in the range of 15 to 16 percent so far when the economy had slowed down.

“The FBR has provisionally collected Rs325 billion so far in November 2019 against the desired target of Rs381.4 billion”, said the official sources and added that the FBR had faced shortfall of Rs56.4 billion just in one month. The FBR is expecting that its revenue collection may go up few billion rupees more in next few days when revenue collection figures will be finalised.

Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has provisionally collected Rs1608 billion during July-November (2019-20) against target of Rs1828.4 billion, reflecting a shortfall of Rs220.4 billion.

During July-October (2019-20) period, the FBR had collected Rs1283 billion against target of Rs1447 billion, reflecting a shortfall of Rs164 billion.

The FBR had collected around Rs1380 billion during July-November (2018-19) against provisional collection of Rs1608 billion during July-November (2019-20), reflecting an increase of Rs228 billion (14.3percent).

Last month, FBR had collected Rs320 billion during the month of October 2019 and has maintained overall increase over last year of 16 percent and domestic tax over 25 percent. This was after taking into account negative aspect of import contraction of around Rs50 billion.