10 March 2005	Thursday	28 Muharram 1426

ISLAMABAD, March 9: The collection of domestic sales tax from 12 major commodities has registered an average 13 per cent decrease during the first half year of the current fiscal year over the same period of the last year.

Official figures available with Dawn showed that major contribution of the domestic ST collection came from nine products - POL products, electrical energy, natural gas, cotton, sugar, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), auto parts and services.

Of the total collection of Rs68.877 billion during the first half year, around Rs44 billion sales tax at domestic stage was collected from these nine products. The remaining amount of sales tax was realized from all other products, which showed a narrow base of sales tax collection.

With this constant decrease in the domestic sales tax collection during the period under review, it would be a tough task for the CBR to meet the IMF's conditionality of showing 0.2 per cent growth in the tax to GDP ratio each year.

Besides, the number of sales tax taxpayers has also decreased to 85,000 this year from 165,000. Of these the live taxpayers who file returns with the sales tax department stood at around 42,000.

The product wise sales tax collection showed that sales tax collection declined by 0.8 per cent on cigarettes during the July-December period of the current fiscal year and stood at Rs2.351 billion as against Rs2.369 billion over the same period of the last year; collection from cement declined by 11.3 per cent to Rs1.812 billion as against Rs2.044 billion of last year.

Similarly collection of sales tax declined by 15.7 per cent from fertilizers/urea to Rs1.653 billion against Rs1.961 billion during the same period of the last year; 13.6 per cent on acid (others) to Rs417.023 million as against Rs482.801 million of last year; 1.9 per cent on paper and paperboard to Rs305.287 million as against Rs311.322 million of the last year; 8.3 per cent on food products to Rs247.774 million as against Rs270.101 million of the last year.

And the sales tax collection declined by 7.3 per cent on power-looms (grey/thicken cloth) to Rs238.612 million as against Rs257.359 million of the last year; 14 per cent on man-made fibre and yarn to Rs220.048 million as against Rs255.848 million of last year; 0.7 per cent on plastic products to Rs190.546 million as against Rs191.950 million of the last year; 28.4 per cent on processed fabrics to Rs187.408 million as against Rs261.892 million of the last year; 49.1 per cent on polyester staple fibre to Rs180.462 million as against Rs354.227 million of the last year and 3.1 per cent on biscuits to Rs170.728 million as against Rs176.120 million of the last year.