PESHAWAR, Sept 4: The NWFP government could not meet even the downward revised target under the land and agriculture income tax during the 2001-02 financial year, according to official sources.

The provincial government had initially set Rs180m target under the said head for the 2001-02 financial year. However, when the tax collection authorities termed the target on the high side, the provincial government revised the target effecting major reduction in the size of the target.

The NWFP Board of Revenue - responsible for the collection of the tax - had internally brought down the target to Rs56m.

Similarly, the finance department refixed the target at Rs50m bringing the target down by Rs130m for the outgoing financial year.

However, according to the recently finalized tax collection position for the out-going financial year, the provincial government missed even the downward revised target.

None of the targets — Rs56m and Rs50m set respectively by the provincial Board of Revenue and the finance department, NWFP—could be achieved as the province was able to collect Rs45.9m under both the heads of the land tax and agriculture income tax.

About Rs2m were raised through the agriculture income tax and remaining Rs43.9m were collected under the land tax component of the provincial tax.

In this way, according to the sources, the internally set Rs56m target of the Board of Revenue was missed by slightly over Rs10m whereas the downward revised target of Rs50m set by the finance department was missed with a difference of slightly over Rs4m.

The sources termed the missing of the downward revised target for the 2001-02 financial year ‘writing on the wall’ because of the poor performance and little impact of the newly enforced land tax and agriculture income tax ordinance — introduced in July 2000 and got into effect in the 2001-02 financial year due to delayed preparation of the rules.

Apart from the in-built loop-holes in the new ordinance, which, said the sources, provided an opportunity to the owners of big land lords to exploit it to their favour, not-up-to-the-mark performance of the tax collection machinery and the government’s decision to declare some parts of the province as calamity-hit during the last financial year also left the target unmet.

However, this is not for the first time that the agriculture income target had been missed since its introduction — on acreage basis — in the 1996-97 financial year.

“There was no denying the fact that the new ordinance made the province to lose substantial amount of the tax base and revenue the last provincial government had managed to achieve,” said the sources. The province had recorded over Rs70m recoveries under the agriculture income tax head during the 1997- 98 financial year—the highest ever recovery recorded by the province under the said head.

The sources apprehended the provincial government’s ability to meet the Rs50m target set for the current financial year after several agriculture-rich parts of the province have recently been declared calamity-hit by the provincial authorities concerned suspending the recovery of agriculture income tax during the remaining part of the current financial year.