FBR eyes Rs1,300bln in Apr-June to achieve annual revenue target

KARACHI: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will fuel its tax collection drive to score Rs1,300 billion in the ongoing quarter (April-June) in order to achieve the annual target of the current fiscal year of 2016/17, sources said on Monday. 

The annual target was set at Rs3,621 billion.

The sources said the FBR has decided to launch crackdown against 100,000 individual and association of persons and 21,000 corporate entities during the last three-month period of 2016/17.

FBR sources said Rehamatullah Khan Wazir, Member Inland Revenue (Operations) held meetings with chief commissioners and commissioners of large taxpayers units (LTUs) and regional tax offices Karachi to discuss the current position of revenue collection during the first nine months and devise strategy for the last quarter.

After the meetings, Wazir told The News that FBR would invoke all legal provisions against people having taxable income but were not settling their liabilities.

On business community’s concerns over notices and raids, he said compliant taxpayers should not be worried on FBR action. “It is only against defaulters and non-filers,” he said. “FBR would issue notices and recover taxes from evaders and non-filers.”

Member IR said a number of individuals, who spend millions of rupees and live lavish life but their tax contribution is nothing, have already been identified

The sources said the FBR is hopeful of achieving the full-year target on the back of significant revenue growth in March.

The revenue collection posted an impressive 17 percent growth during March as FBR provisionally collected Rs346 billion as compared to Rs296 billion in the same month of the last year.

The provisional collection in the July-March period of 2016/17 amounted to Rs2,306 billion, around 64 percent of the total target.

It means the FBR further requires Rs1,315 billion to achieve annual target of Rs3,621 billion in the remaining three months.

The sources said Wazir, during the meetings, praised the revenue collection efforts of LTU Karachi for surpassing monthly collection target. The LTU Karachi collected Rs114.9 billion in March as against the target of Rs112.3 billion.

The member operation directed the tax offices to speed up efforts against
non-filers for broadening the tax base and revenue generation.