No room for complacency on revenue targets, PM warns authorities

Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Wednesday warned that any form of complacency in meeting revenue and economic targets for the new fiscal year will not be tolerated, vowing to personally oversee the implementation process to ensure full accountability and performance.

The premier made these remarks while chairing a high-level weekly review meeting on the digitisation and reform agenda of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

During the meeting, it was revealed that reforms and enforcement of new tax laws enabled the government to collect an additional Rs865 billion in revenues compared to the previous year, an eightfold increase. The federal revenue-to-GDP ratio also improved significantly, reaching 11.3%, a 1.5% rise over last year.

Speaking on the occasion, PM Shehbaz applauded the Ministry of Finance and the tax-collection authority for achieving a historic 42% increase in federal tax revenues during the fiscal year 2024-25 — the highest surge in the past decade.

He instructed FBR to treat taxpayers with dignity and respect and called upon all public sector institutions to extend full cooperation with the revenue authority. The prime minister also stressed the need to broaden the tax net through digitalisation and enforcement.

He also issued key directives including expansion of the Track and Trace Digital Production System to cover all stages of production and distribution in order to bring untaxed production into the tax net, mandatory digitisation of production processes for tax non-compliant businesses and industries, widening the Point of Sale (POS) system in the retail sector to strengthen documentation and transparency and ensuring business facilitation by keeping FBR accessible to the business community and taxpayers.

The prime minister also congratulated the meeting participants on the successful passage of the upcoming fiscal year’s budget and reiterated the government’s unwavering commitment to ensuring Pakistan’s bright economic future.

It was informed during the briefing that the Track and Trace system has already been fully implemented in sugar, tobacco, and fertilizer sectors, and will soon be expanded to cement and other industries.