Daily Times

Despite the fact that the economy has been sluggish in the wake of ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has collected Rs1,688 billion net revenue in the first five months (July-November) of the current fiscal year 2020-21 against the target of Rs1,669 billion.

According to details, revenue collected in the first five months of the last fiscal year 2019-20 was Rs1,623 billion. Income Tax collection from July to November stood at Rs577 billion. Similarly, collection of Sales Tax, Federal Excise Duty and Customs Duty remained Rs743 billion, Rs104 billion and Rs264.4 billion respectively.

The FBR has collected gross revenue of Rs1,773 billion in the first five months from July to November which was Rs1,664 billion in the previous year; thus, showing an increase of Rs109 billion in the current year. For the month of November only, the total collected revenue stood at Rs347 billion against the target of Rs348 billion.

In the first five months of current fiscal year, refunds to the tune of Rs80 billion against only Rs41 billion last year have been issued, which has greatly helped boost the economic activity in the country. The refunds issued during the month of November this year are over Rs17 billion which were Rs4 billion in the corresponding month of the last year. Despite an increase in refunds, the FBR has still managed to cross the revenue collection of November last year.

During the first five months of current fiscal year, smuggled goods worth Rs27 billion have been seized as compared to seizures of Rs18 billion during the corresponding months of 2019.

The FBR performed well despite the fact that the economy has been sluggish in the wake of the pandemic. Moreover, the government had extended significant tax relief measures to the public in the Finance Act, 2020.

The FBR said that it is fully geared towards automation, e-audit, and simplification of procedures, e-payment of duty draw back so as to add to Ease of Doing Business (EoDB). The FBR has launched a single page simplified Income Tax Return for SME manufacturers.

The FBR said it has upgraded the IRIS system for issuing SMS and emails whenever any notice is issued or any assignment is created by a Tax Officer. It further said that it has launched a system Maloomat-TaxRay wherein taxpayers’ can access all information available with the FBR by logging through a secure mechanism. For further facilitation, this feature has been launched in a mobile app, Tax Assan, so that taxpayers’ can easily access all such information.

The FBR has appealed to the taxpayers to avail these facilitative measures and ensure filing annual income tax returns by the last date i.e. 8th December, 2020.