ISLAMABAD : The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) may achieve revised tax collection target of Rs 6100 billion for outgoing fiscal year (2021-22) as its net collection as of June 22, 2022 stands at Rs 5.8 trillion plus, It is learnt here.
”The FBR has done a good job by collecting Rs 5822 billion with a week in hand before closure of the outgoing fiscal year 2021-22 that makes it possible for it to achieve enhance revenue target of Rs 6.1 trillion by June 30 ”, an official source confided to this scribe on Thursday.
The collection data as of June 22, 2022 shows over all around 28 percent increase over the same period of the last fiscal year. The FBR is struggling to achieve revised target of Rs 6100 billion. The trend of the growth shows FBR could achieve Rs 7.342 billion target of revenue collection for next fiscal year. The government had set a target of Rs 6800 billion for next fiscal year, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) disagreed with it and demanded of Islamabad to revise it by Rs 442 billion to secure a deal under Extended Funding Facility (EFF). Accepting target of enhanced revenue collection was one of major condition of IMF to restore its EFF programme for Pakistan. Since Pakistan had lost every option to survive from its worse ever financial crisis it accepted all conditionalities of the fund to secure its $ 1 billion tranche to stop its economic meltdown.
In the given scenario when Pakistan’s interest on loans is putting its economy at risk, its important for Islamabad to generate more revenue and get out of financial mess. IMF’s condition of higher revenue collection may serve as a push for Pakistan to tighten its belt by cutting down its non-developmental expenditure and at the same time improve revenue collection to increase indigenous income to reduce its reliance on loans. FBR could play a crucial role in bring Pakistan to a stage where its income goes up- considerably and reduce its reliance on loans.