ISLAMABAD – Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh asked the tax mandarins in a stern warning on Wednesday to rise to the occasion by delivering the tax collection target of Rs 1.604 trillion for the current fiscal year, or leave their offices for others to deliver. The minister was addressing a specially convened conference of chief commissioners and Inland Revenue commissioners to review their performance and set revenue collection targets for the remaining four months of the current fiscal year. The meeting was told that up to February there was a shortfall of Rs 32 billion in revenue collection that needed to be bridged in the current financial year.
There was another shocking disclosure that the tax authorities had made an inadmissible input adjustment of sales tax refund worth Rs 40.5 billion in the current financial year. Taking an aggressive stance, the finance minister called the current low tax-to-GDP ratio of 10 percent a “historic failure” of the tax authorities for not mobilising domestic revenue resources. He said the stakes were high and they must stretch to meet the target. “Every effort should be made for tax collection from evaders, especially the affluent ones, to meet the expectations of the common people,” said Shaikh.
He told the Federal Board of Revenue chairman and members to fix monthly targets for the top tax officials and hold monthly reviews of their performance. He said it was not acceptable that the most powerful officials could not meet such a normal revenue collection target for the current fiscal. “There should be no excuse for failure to perform your duties!” he said. He assured the officials that all their legitimate demands such as more officers and support staff, implementation of merit and rewards for good performance would be implemented. However, he said, dishonesty, lethargy, and complacency would not be accepted. The tax evaders should be pursued but there should be no harassment of honest taxpayers, he said.
FBR Chairman Salman Siddique told reporters that the tax authorities had discussed their strategy and a clear roadmap was devised along with targets for the current fiscal year. He said net tax collection up to February 11 was Rs 873.1 billion, which was 10.3 percent more than the Rs 791.4 billion of the same period in the last fiscal year.
Under the new revenue measures, he said, Large Tax Units (LTU) and Regional Tax Offices (RTO) had been asked to issue notices by March 15 to 1,000 companies that had not filed sales taxes, and the deadline for the recovery of the dues was May 15. Similarly, another 1,000 companies would be issued notices by March 15 for not filing their complete sales tax and final recovery would be made before May 21.
He said changes in FBR were made to give choice to members to have their own teams as they would be accountable for failure if they did not get their targets.
