FBR extends date for filing tax returns till Nov 15

ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has been facing shortfall of over Rs30 billion so far in tax collection in outgoing month (October 2017) as the provisional collection stood at Rs257.3 billion against desired target of Rs288.7 billion.

The FBR has extended the date for filing of income tax returns by 15 days i.e. November 15. The FBR has kept its monthly target as the most secret item so no one is allowed officially to talk about monthly target with the media persons. The FBR’s PRAL system related to Information Technology (IT) got choked in last few days and keeping in view difficulties being faced by the taxpayers the government decided to grant another extension of 15 days up to November 15, 2017.

Regarding revenue collection, the FBR has collected Rs1022.3 billion in first four months (July-Oct) period of the current fiscal year against the desired envisaged target of Rs1053 billion for this period of the current fiscal year. The FBR’s collection had witnessed shortfall of around Rs10 billion in first three months so overall shortfall went up to Rs40 billion for first four months (July-Oct) period of the ongoing fiscal year. The FBR has envisaged collection target of Rs4013 billion for FY 2017-18 against collection of Rs3362 billion in FY 2016-17.

After assuming charge as Chairman FBR Tariq Pasha loved to keep sometimes very minor information close to his chest and no one was allowed to share even provisional revenue collection figure or monthly target with the media persons.

“Our target will be 19.2 percent growth in each and every month of 2017-18 compared to actual collection in the same month of the last fiscal year,” the FBR’s spokesman Dr Iqbal said this scribe contacted him on Tuesday evening. He said that the bank branches would remain open till midnight so the FBR’s collection figure would be shared afterwards.

One top official in the FBR told a select group of reporters that the collection of FBR had witnessed massive and sudden surge in revenue collection in last week of previous fiscal during October 2016 when Finance Minister Ishaq Dar chaired a meeting regarding dismal performance of tax collectors and even decision was taken in this specific meeting to post out whole FBR’s team after analysing revenue collection performance for October 2016.

When FBR team came back they took advances from banks and from just one bank they obtained Rs5 billion. The FBR team managed to collect Rs28 billion on last day of October 31, 2016.

Now in this fiscal year, the FBR’s collection was showing growth of around 30 percent in first three weeks but it nosedived overall to around 15 percent within next 5 days till October 30 this year. When FBR high-ups got panicked and checked for ascertaining facts they came to know that the advances taken by the FBR in last week of October 2016 jumped up the collection manifold and now the FBR would have to strive hard to match with the desired growth number of 19.2 percent after achieving 15 percent growth so far.

There are some reports that some branches of the nationalised banks were not clearing tax collection receipts so the FBR high-ups were quite optimistic that the final collection would go up in the range of Rs7 to 10 billion after clearance of all ledgers and bills from the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP).