Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The government has been able to limit fiscal deficit at 1.3 percent during the first quarter of the current fiscal year by showing Rs 38 billion as statistical discrepancy in the budgetary operations.

Finance Ministry uploaded the summary of consolidated federal and provincial budgetary operations for July-September 2016-17 on Monday.

Total tax revenue during the first three month was Rs 862 billion against the total revenue of Rs 1,300 billion. Tax revenue stood at Rs 625 billion, while current expenditure were Rs 1,070 billion, with the provincial share of only Rs 26 billion.

Financing for the Rs 437 billion deficit was met through external and domestic resources. The government’s domestic financing stood at Rs 369 billion and external at Rs 68 billion to finance the deficit. The domestic financing included bank borrowing of Rs 299 billion and non-bank borrowing of Rs 69 billion.

Among the current expenditure, mark-up payment tops with Rs 414 billion, with domestic debt servicing and consolidated development spending standing at Rs 190 billion and defence spending at Rs 151 billion. The federal government development budget utilisation was Rs 64 billion during the first three months of the current fiscal year, and provincial governments utilised Rs 103 billion during July-September 2016-17. Analysts say that with this pace, utilisation of development budget would be significantly less than that budgeted. An amount of Rs 38 billion was shown in the account of statistical discrepancy.

The current expenditure of the government for the period under review stood at 3.2 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and tax revenue at 2.2 percent. The total revenue as percentage of the GDP stood at 2.6 percent and total expenditure at 3.9 percent.

The government collected Rs 231 billion through direct taxes, Rs 393 billion through indirect taxes, Rs 4 billion through tax on property, Rs 294 billion through tax on goods and services – Rs 32 billion excise duty and Rs 261 billion as sales tax. Additionally, an amount of Rs 100 billion was collected through taxes on international trade. Moreover, Rs 107 billion came in the form of other taxes, which include sales tax on services. General sales tax (GST) stood at Rs 17 billion, stamp duties at Rs 6 billion, motor vehicle tax at Rs 5 billion, gas infrastructure development cess at Rs 14 billion, natural gas development surcharge at Rs 9 billion, petroleum levy at Rs 35 billion and other taxes at Rs 17 billion, according to the documents.