Lahore
The Friends of Economic & Business Reforms (FEBR) on Monday welcomed the agreement of Pakistan and the IMF on downward revision of FBR’s tax collection target, slashing it by Rs.233 billion to bring it at Rs.5.27 trillion against earlier target of Rs.5.5 trillion for 2019-20. FEBR president Kashif Anwar warned that the Rs.5.27 trillion tax revenue target is still unrealistic, asking the government to further reset realistic tax target that could be achievable and prove beneficial for the economy. Kashif Anwar said that it is evident that the FBR will not be able to materialize its annual tax collection target of Rs5.27 trillion in the current fiscal against Rs3.83 trillion in the last financial year, as the FBR requires a growth of 44 percent which seems impossible. He said that the FBR had collected Rs963.5 billion in first three months of the current fiscal year against the set target of Rs1071 billion thus faced a shortfall of Rs108 billion. Now after incorporating the figure of October the overall revenue shortfall climbed to Rs164 billion in first four months of the current fiscal year. The FBR had collected Rs320 billion in October 2019 and the FBR was expecting to increase collection to Rs325 billion against the desired target of Rs376 billion indicating a revenue shortfall of Rs56 billion just in last one month.—INP
