ISLAMABAD, July 23: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) would achieve the annual tax collection target of Rs460.6 billion set for the current financial year without any downward revision.

Member direct taxes and official spokesman of Central Board of Revenue (CBR), Vakil Ahmed Khan said that the budgetary target was not only reasonable but achievable and was not ambitious by any standard.

Talking to Dawn he said that this year CBR paid out Rs13 billion extra refunds to clear a backlog of last year on indirect side, Rs5 billion impact occurred due to the 9/11 incident thus the total tax collection this year was around 420 billion rupees.

During the current financial year, Mr Khan said, CBR was not going to pay any extra refund as well as there would be no incident like 9/11, therefore, with a normal growth of 9 per cent, which was an account of GDP and inflation, an amount of Rs37 billion extra will be collected. This is a growth without an effort of the department, he claimed.

“There is no possibility of downward revision at this stage. However, a normal review would be conducted and if there is any downward trend in import, GDP growth or inflation, then adjustment in the target would be warranted,” Mr. Khan remarked.

According to him no additional tax will be levied on the new items to achieve the target.

He said that despite the fact that due to the budgetary measure a net loss of 5-8 billion rupees will occur, an amount of 150 billion rupees is expected from direct taxes during the year 2002-03, which will be achieved easily.

He said that the sales tax target of Rs205 billion will be achieved easily. Despite the payment of extra Rs13 billion as refunds, loss of Rs2 billion due to 9/11, CBR collected 166 billion rupees this year from the GST.

He said this year it was estimated to collect Rs4 billion from GST on vegetable ghee and cooking oil, Rs5 billion from fertilizers and pharmaceuticals. All this means that CBR could easily achieve the target of Rs205 billion under the head of sales tax with a growth of 9 per cent.

According to the spokesman, during the year 2001-02, Rs5 billion extra refund and rebate was paid from customs duty collection, which he said would not be paid this year so it meant that the Rs56 billion target of customs was also easily achievable.