September 20, 2008	Saturday	Ramazan 19, 1429

LAHORE, Sept 19: The government will review the revenue collection position in December and make efforts to raise the targets instead of scaling down.

Federal Board of Revenue Chairman and Revenue Division Secretary Ahmed Waqar said this while talking to reporters after inaugurating taxpayers’ facilitation centers at Defence and Liberty Market here on Friday.

The FBR chairman said the government was continuing discussions with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for increasing the revenue.

He said the government wanted to raise the tax collection for increasing the fiscal space to make funds available for the social sector development.

Mr Waqar said that more than 500 people had filed declarations of hidden assets and deposited over Rs300 million under the income tax amnesty scheme so far.

Over 227 people had deposited Rs61 million in Lahore and more than 200 had deposited Rs100 million in Karachi, he said.

He said the amnesty would be available till November 30 after which the government would start a crackdown on tax evaders.

The government, he said, was fully aware of the avenues of tax evasion but had announced the amnesty scheme to give the people a chance to get their hidden assets regularized by paying a nominal two per cent tax.

The FBR chairman said the regulatory duty on import of non-essential goods like cars and electronics had been raised in view of pressure on foreign exchange reserves.

He said that most of the revenue of Rs1,250 billion was coming from sales tax and other direct taxes while only Rs169 billion were coming from customs duty.

Answering a question, he said that imported baby milk was a luxury item because it was not used by the children of ordinary people.

He said the government was not considering extension in the date of filing tax returns.

An office-bearer of traders association urged the FBR chairman to review the exemption of mills from 0.5 per cent turnover tax by his predecessor Yousaf Abdullah as it would deprive the government of over Rs1 billion revenue. The FBR chairman said that he would look into the matter.