LTU Karachi collects Rs298bln in July-October

KARACHI: The Large Taxpayers Unit (LTU) Karachi collected Rs298 billion during the first four months of the current fiscal year, posting 13 percent growth when compared with Rs263 billion in the corresponding months of the last fiscal.
The LTU sources said the unit achieved the growth despite the difficult economic scenario considering fall in international oil and commodity prices and ease in inflationary growth.
The sources said the international falling commodity prices directly hit the revenue collection at import stage as the unit collects sales tax. Since major oil companies are registered with the unit, the sales of such companies also impacted its revenue, said an official at the LTU Karachi.
The official said inflation witnessed a continuous contraction, which hampered the revenue collection from both sales tax and income tax.
The details revealed that the unit collected Rs49 billion under the head of direct taxes during July – October 2015, which was 61 percent higher than Rs30.4 billion collected in the same period of last year. The issuance of refunds in income tax fell 41 percent to Rs3.44 billion from Rs5.8 billion. However, adjustments increased 60 percent to Rs3 billion, comparing the previous figures of Rs1.9 billion.
The direct tax collection mainly attributed to collection of withholding taxes and measures taken in the last budget. Withholding tax collection posted 34 percent growth to Rs18 billion as against Rs13.57 billion. The unit received Rs4.11 billion during the period as withholding tax on banking non-cash transactions.
The major component in the revenue collection of the LTU is sales tax, which posted six percent growth to Rs231 billion as compared with Rs219 billion.
The collection of sales tax at domestic level posted five percent growth to Rs61.7 billion from Rs58.78 billion. The sales tax on import stage posted seven percent growth to Rs177.75 billion as compared with Rs165 billion.
Under the head of indirect taxes, the collection of Federal Excise Duty (FED) stood at Rs17.54 billion during the period under review, as against Rs13.78 billion in the corresponding period of last year, showing 27 percent growth.
The LTU Karachi is the biggest revenue collection arm of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) as its collection is around 37 percent of total collection at the national level. The FBR during the first four months of the current fiscal year collected Rs811 billion as against Rs755 billion in the corresponding months of the last fiscal year, depicting 12 percent growth.