ISLAMABAD:(Parliament Times) The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has linked the collection of Rs981.4 billion in the last two months of the current fiscal year with the resolution of audit cases, recovery of arrears and current demands.An official source told Dawn on Friday it will be difficult for the FBR to achieve the revised revenue target of Rs3,500bn. The original budgetary revenue target was Rs3,621bn.“We are expecting the revenue collection will be around Rs3,400bn,†the official said, adding that it depends on the collection of pending revenue through the alternative dispute resolution mechanism and finalisation of audit cases.In the first 10 months of 2016-17, the FBR collected Rs2,518.6bn against Rs2,346bn collected over the corresponding period of last year, reflecting an increase of 7.4 per cent.Official data shows the total outstanding demand for arrears was Rs262bn. Out of this amount, various courts stayed cases involving Rs105bn. Consequently, Rs158bn was collectable demand from taxpayers.
The FBR estimated it would collect Rs120bn in the last quarter (April-June) of 2016-17 under this head against the collection of Rs53bn a year ago.The FBR also expected to raise maximum revenue from the finalisation of audit cases. Data shows the FBR finalised 11,686 audit cases up to February. Total demand created in all these cases was Rs26.13bn. The number of audit cases pending with the FBR was 172,476.
“We are expecting that 55,000 cases will be disposed of by June,†the official said, adding that the tax demand to be created in these cases is expected to be Rs123bn. In the last quarter of 2015-16, tax demand of Rs55.476bn was created out of total audit cases of 26,820.The FBR also identified several big taxpayers that have shown negative growth in their payment of sales tax and federal excise duty (FED) in the first eight months of the current fiscal year. “We are expecting to collect revenue from these taxpayers by serving notices on them,†the official said.Provisional figures show the FBR collected Rs978.8bn in direct taxes, Rs1,009.2bn in sales tax, Rs144bn in FED and Rs386.6bn in customs duty in July-April.
