LAHORE: The Punjab government faces an embarrassing situation as its published data on the provincial revenue receipts for the month of July belies its claim that it has grown its tax and non-tax revenues by a hefty 47.7 per cent from a year ago.

The provincial finance department handout boasted on Wednesday that the tax and non-tax revenue income during July had gone up to Rs22.9 billion, which includes tax income of Rs19.3bn, from the last year’s Rs15.5bn.

But the published data of the provincial government shows a 23pc drop in its tax and non-tax revenue during the first month of the ongoing financial year - July - to Rs11.9bn on a year-on-year basis from last fiscal. The total provincial collection comprises tax revenue of Rs8.3bn and non-tax receipts of Rs3.6bn. Last year, the province had collected Rs13.1bn in taxes and Rs2.4bn in non-tax income.

Published data shows 23pc drop in income while handout boasts of 47pc increase

According to the published data, the tax and non-tax revenue collection has not only dipped in absolute terms but also as a per cent of the target given in the budget for the present financial year. The total revenue collected during July this year is just 3.1pc of the tax and non-tax income target of Rs388.5bn for the entire fiscal compared with 4.1pc it dredged up last fiscal during the same month.

It seems as if no one in the government is aware of the huge discrepancy and no attempt had been made to correct the “error” till last night. In fact provincial finance secretary Abdullah Sumbal expressed his surprise when he was apprised about the discrepancy in the figures given by his department through the handout and the ones published in the civil accounts for July on his department’s web site. But he said the published data had got the numbers wrong, saying that there had actually been an increase of 47pc in revenue collection.

He said the major boost in tax revenues came from 66pc growth in collection of provincial sales tax on services and other indirect levies to Rs11.3bn by the Punjab Revenue Authority (PRA) on a year-on-year basis.

Published in Dawn, September 19th, 2019