April 1, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 28, 1424

ISLAMABAD, March 31: The Central Board of Revenue has claimed that it will meet the revenue target for the first nine months of the year. Hitherto, Rs309.2 billion have been reported as provisional collection up to March 31 against the target of Rs310.1 billion.

The CBR expects to collect up to Rs2 billion more when the revenue collection figures up to March 31 are finalized in the next 10 days or so.

If the CBR succeeds in collecting Rs310.3 billion up to March 31, it will mark an improvement of over 15 per cent, as compared to the collection of last year when the revenue realization was Rs269.8 billion. Even the provisional figures of Rs309.2 billion for the nine months mark an improvement of almost 14.6 per cent over the actual collections up to March 31, last year.

The provisional revenue figure for March is Rs37.5 billion. The CBR expects the final figure to be over Rs38.6 billion. Even the provisional figure of Rs37.6 billion compares favourably with the collection of Rs34.9 billion during March last year.

The break-up of provisional figures for March indicates collection of Rs16.3 billion as sales tax, Rs6.4 billion as customs duty, Rs3.6 billion as CED and Rs11.2 billion as income tax.

The nine-month provisional collection shows Rs138.8 billion as sales tax, Rs45.3 billion as customs duty, Rs30.8 billion as CED and Rs94.4 billion as income tax.

The CBR has not withheld any refunds during the current year for bolstering the collection figures. In all Rs59.3 billion have been paid out as refund up to March. An amount of Rs35 billion has been paid as sales tax refund, as against Rs30.5 billion paid last year, showing an increase of 14.8 per cent. In income tax, the refunds paid out up to March are Rs10 billion, as against Rs8.6 billion in the previous year, showing an increase of Rs16.3 per cent.