June 03, 2007	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 17, 1428

ISLAMABAD, June 2: The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) is facing a revenue shortfall of Rs52.026 billion on account of two leading federal taxes — general sales tax (GST) and customs duty — during the first 11 months (July-May) of the current fiscal year over the same period last year.

It is the income tax collection, which has crossed the target set for the levy by Rs52.342 billion during the period under review, which comes to the rescue of the tax machinery in achieving the overall revenue target.

In absolute terms, the CBR has raised the revenue to the tune of Rs719.644 billion during the July-May period of the current fiscal year as against the target of Rs719.1 billion set for the same period.

Official figures available with Dawn showed that the GST remained short of target by Rs29.186 billion in 11 months of the current fiscal year as revenue

realisation under the head reached Rs274.314 billion as against the target of Rs303.5 billion set for the same period.

The collection of GST has registered a nominal growth of only over five per cent in July-May this year when compared with the same period last year.

Of these the growth in GST on import stage recorded 3.7 and nine per cent growth at domestic level during the period under review.

The annul target set for the GST collection stood at Rs343.8 billion. This means that for achieving the target under the head the CBR would have to do extra effort to generate Rs69.486 billion revenue in the month of June.

Poor enforcement of the sales tax regime by the CBR in the last few years has resulted in a narrow tax-base, where just 30 top taxpayers pay more than 50 per cent of the total sales tax receipts.

During the fiscal year 2006, 30 top taxpayers contributed to 50.4 per cent of the total domestic sales tax collection, reflecting a growth of 19.7 per cent as against one per cent growth of all the remaining taxpayers.

On the other hand, customs duty lagged behind the target by Rs22.84 billion in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year as revenue stood at Rs113.853 billion as against the target of Rs136.7 billion set for the same period. The customs levy also witnessed a negative growth of 3.5 per cent during the period during the period under review over the same period of last year.

The customs collection target for the whole year was projected at Rs157.5 billion, which seemed very difficult to be achieved by end June 2007. It is estimated that the collection under the head of customs duty would be around Rs130 billion by end June 30.

The drastic reduction in customs levy was attributed to fall in collection of customs duty from plastic products, followed by rubber, iron and steel and chemical products during the period under review.