January 29, 2006	Sunday	Zilhaj 28, 1426

ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: The Central Board of Revenue has collected Rs323.028 billion revenue during the first half of the current fiscal year as against Rs262.490 billion in the same period last year, indicating an increase of 23.1 per cent.

Final figures released by the CBR here on Saturday indicated that the growth in the collection of direct taxes stood at 32.9 per cent and indirect taxes 18.9pc during the period under review over the same period last year.

Further break-up showed that the collection of overall sales tax recorded a growth of 20.8 per cent during the July-Dec period of the fiscal year 2005-06 over the same period last year.

Of these, the collection of sales tax at the domestic level rose by 28.3 per cent and 16.5 per cent on import stage during the period under review over the last year.

The collection of customs duty increased by 20.1 per cent during the first half year of this year over the same period last year, while the collection of federal excise duty registered a nominal growth of 7.4 per cent during the same period.