The meeting of National Finance Commission (NFC) was convened Monday to monitor the implementation for second bi-annual period (January-June 2014) of financial year 2013-14. Finance Minister Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar chaired the meeting.
The draft report was presented before participants of the meeting including provincial finance ministers, finance secretaries, respective provincial members and other senior officials.
During the discussion after presentation of the report, meeting reiterated the need to broaden the tax base to increase the overall collection and also increase the tax to GDP ratio.
All the members after detailed deliberations unanimously approved the report for presentation to the parliament and provincial assemblies.
According to the report, during the FY 2013-14, FBR reported a collection of Rs 2,254.5 billion. The meeting was informed that out of this amount the shares given to the provinces are: Punjab (Rs 637 billion), Sindh (Rs 302 billion), KP (Rs 202 billion) and Balochistan (Rs123 billion).
In addition to this, the shares on account of royalties and grants provided to provinces are: Punjab (Rs 8.8 billion), Sindh (Rs 82.6 billion), KP (Rs 29.97 billion) and Baluchistan (Rs 14.9 billion).
At the conclusion of the meeting, the finance minister also announced that as per commitment of the federal government with provinces at the forum of CCI, the federal government is providing Rs 999.922 million to Punjab, Rs 18.021 million to Sindh, Rs 1,015.976 million to KP and Rs 533.725 million to Balochistan for the cash surpluses maintained with SBP by the provinces during the first quarter of current financial year 2014-15.
The meeting also had detailed deliberations on the reporting mechanism of the FBR. The minister remarked that members were welcome to put forth suggestions and comments for modification in the system. There could be further discussion in this regard in future, he said.
