FBR fails to achieve target of Rs457 bn in Jan 22

ISLAMABAD: Contrary to the prevailing trend of collecting higher revenue than the target throughout the ongoing fiscal year, the revenue watchdog Federal Board of Revenue failed to achieve its envisaged target of Rs457 billion for January 2022, falling short of Rs27 billion.

The shortfall could cause a serious blow in an effort to achieve the target of Rs6.1 trillion for the current fiscal year 2021-22, as the government had revised the revenue collection target upward from Rs5.829 trillion to Rs6.1 trillion under the IMF program.

The trend of exceeding FBR’s monthly revenue collection target was reversed with the start of the first month of the second half (Jan-June) period of the current fiscal year as the FBR missed out its monthly envisaged target for January 2022 with a margin of Rs 27 billion as it collect Rs430 billion.

However, the FBR continued claiming to surpass its seven-month (July-Jan) revenue collection target with a margin of Rs 262 billion.But the monthly envisaged target for January 2022 was missed out in accordance with provisional revenue collection figures as the FBR managed to collect Rs3352 billion in the first seven months and now it will need to collect Rs2658 billion in the remaining five months (Feb-June) period for achieving the overall target of Rs6100 billion displayed on its board.

The News sent out a questionnaire to FBR’s official spokesperson on Monday night to ascertain reasons for missing out the collection target for January 2022 but received no reply till filing of the report.

According to an official announcement made on Monday night, FBR has successfully maintained the momentum of its growth trajectory in revenue collection.

The FBR has released the provisional revenue collection figures for seven months from July 2021 to January 2022 of financial year 2021-22.

According to the provisional information, the country's premier revenue collection organization has collected net revenue of Rs 3,352 billion during July 2021 to January 2022 of current financial year, which has exceeded the target of Rs3,090 billion by Rs262 billion. This represents a growth of about 30.4 against the collection of Rs2,571 billion during the same period, last year.

The net collection for the month of January 2022 stood at Rs 430 billion representing an increase of 17.2 percent against Rs367 billion for the corresponding period of the preceding year.

These figures would further improve before the close of the day and after book adjustments have been taken in to account.

On the other hand, the gross collection increased from Rs2,705 billion to Rs 3,533 billion during first seven months of the current fiscal year (July2021 to January 2022) showing an increase of 30.6 percent. Likewise, an increase of 35.9 percent was witnessed in refunds disbursement as Rs182 billion were disbursed during first seven months of the current financial year as compared to the figure of Rs134 billion the last year.

It is pertinent to mention that FBR has introduced a number of innovative interventions both at policy and operational level with a view to maximize revenue potential through digitization, transparency, and taxpayers' facilitation, as per the FBR statement.

It added that the measures had not only resulted in ensuring the ease of doing business but also translated in a healthy and steady growth in revenue collection.