FBR facing Rs215bn shortfall in tax target

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) faces a shortfall of approximately Rs 215 billion for achieving the envisaged tax collection of the first eight months (July-Feb) period as the Board could fetch tax collection of around Rs 4.5 trillion against the envisaged target of Rs 4.7 trillion.

However, the FBR has materialized its monthly target for the outgoing month (February 2023) as the FBR collected Rs 527.2 billion in this month. Now the FBR will have to collect Rs 2.77 trillion in the remaining four months (March-June) period in order to materialize the desired fixed target of Rs 7.47 trillion on its board BY June 30, 2023. It indicates that the FBR will have to collect Rs 694.5 billion every month for achieving its desired target till June 30, 2023. The FBR had envisaged a monthly tax collection target of Rs 527 billion for the outgoing month (February 2023) and the tax machinery reached close to the desired target. However, there was a minor shortfall of a couple of billion so the FBR preferred to release the official figures on Wednesday (today). Despite unveiling the mini budget to bring additional revenues of Rs 170 billion, the FBR faces the gigantic task of materializing the desired revenue collection target on June 30, 2023.

The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had collected Rs 3.9 trillion revenue collection in seven months (July-Jan) period and it fetched Rs 0.525 trillion in accordance with provisional collection in February 2023 so the total collection stood close to Rs 4.5 trillion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year.

It is relevant to remind here that the FBR faced a mammoth revenue shortfall of Rs 225 billion for achieving the tax collection target of December 2022 which was envisaged to collect Rs 963 billion.

The FBR authorities argued that the December target was wrongly fixed on higher side and they would be able to collect the fixed target for Income Tax, Sales Tax and Federal Excise Duty (FED). Now this shortfall would be collected in the remaining period of the current fiscal year.

The FBR collected Rs. 3,965 billion in the first seven months of the current financial year against Rs. 3,367 billion collected in the corresponding period of last year depicting a growth of 18%.