ISLAMABAD, Jan 23: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) collected Rs410 billion revenue during the first half of the fiscal year 2006-07 (July-Dec) as against the target of Rs381.1 billion set for the same period, indicating an increase of 7.58 per cent over the target.

Official figures released here on Tuesday indicated that the growth in revenue realisation was mainly due to unexpected revenue collection during the month of December 2006 over the same month of the last year.

The revenue collection reached Rs114 billion in December, which was an all time high in CBR’s history.

The revenue collection in December 2006 surpassed the total revenue collection of CBR for the whole year of 1990-91, which was only Rs110 billion.The growth in the revenue collection was mainly due to unexpected revenue realisation under the head of income tax, which helped the CBR officials in surpassing the revenue collection.

The collection of revenue from customs duty and sales tax had already remained short of the target during the period under review.