June 04, 2006	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 7, 1427

ISLAMABAD, June 3: The collection of general sales tax (GST) on three commodities — sugar, cigarettes and fertilisers (urea) declined by nine per cent to Rs11.092bn during the July-March period of the current fiscal year as against Rs12.191bn during the same period of the last year.

Official figures released here on Saturday by the Central Board of Revenue (CBR) showed that the collection of GST from 78 sugar mills declined by 3.1 per cent to Rs5.869bn during the nine months of the current fiscal year as against Rs6.054bn over the same period of last year.

The shortfall in sales tax from the millers has been compensated by collection of GST on import of sugar from other countries, which rose by 383.4 per cent to Rs3.3bn during the period under review as against Rs0.7bn over the same period of last year.

The collection from urea declined by 36.6 per cent to Rs1.527bn during this period as against Rs2.409bn over last year and the GST collection from cigarettes declined by 0.9 per cent to Rs3.696bn as against Rs3.730bn over last year.

On the other hand, the CBR raised GST amounting to Rs40.95bn from the three main utilities — POL products, electrical energy and natural gas — during the July-March period of the current fiscal as against Rs35.92bn over the same period of last year, indicating an increase of 13.98 per cent.

Of these the GST raised from POL products at domestic stage (Including petroleum, lubricating Oils) stood at Rs20.29bn during this year as against Rs18.04 billion over last year, showing a growth of 12.5 per cent.

On import stage the GST collected from POL products increased by 57.1 per cent to Rs41bn during the period under review as against Rs26.1bn during the same period last year.