ISLAMABAD – The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) Chairman Salman Siddique on Wednesday said the FBR had proposed a revenue generation plan of Rs 25 billion that included 15 percent flood surcharge on withholding and advance taxes and increasing 1.5 percent Special Excise Duty.
At a presentation to the Senate’s Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue on revenue shortfall for the fiscal year 2010-11, Siddique said the proposed revenue measures would be brought through legislation and would be effective from April. He said according to the revenue measures, the total tax collection target would be around Rs 1,630 billion for the current financial year from earlier revised target of Rs 1,604 billion.
“The text collection target was revised to Rs 1568 billion due to the failure of implementation of the reform general sales tax (GST),” he said. Senator Ahmad Ali presided over the meeting and Senator Professor Khurshid Ahmad, Kalsoom Perveen, Senator Talha Mehmmod, Haroon Khan, Elyas Bilor, Javed Ali Safdar Abbasi, and Islamuddin Shakih. The FBR chairman said it would be difficult for the government to run their affairs or expenditure with this revenue, therefore it was essential that the text collection target was increased to Rs 1,630 billion.
The government could not auction the 3G licences, which could contribute Rs 60 billion to the national exchequer, he said. Siddique said tax evasion was 79 percent of the existing collection. Strategic Planning and Statistics member Mahmood Alam informed the committee that the FBR had to collect Rs 827 billion in the remaining five months of the current fiscal year, requiring 31 percent growth, which was achievable.
He said the FBR had collected Rs 777 billion in the first seven months (July-January) of the ongoing fiscal year, which was 11 percent higher than the collection of Rs 694.7 billion in the same period last year. Meanwhile, the FBR had refunded Rs 59.2 billion from July 2010 to January 2011 that was 27 percent more than the refund of Rs 46.5 billion during same period 2009-10, he said.
