ISLAMABAD: The tax authorities raised Rs1,152.8 billion during the outgoing fiscal year 2008-09 as against the revised target of Rs1,179 billion, leaving a shortfall of Rs26.2 billion.

The revenue target was revised three times to Rs1,179 billion from Rs1,352 billion due to falling imports and slowdown in the economy. However, the economic wizards of the finance ministry held out an assurance to the IMF to achieve the revised target.

A senior FBR official, on condition of anonymity, told Dawn that around Rs21 billion had been stuck up with three government organisations during the fiscal year. He said that Wapda had to pay Rs11 billion as general sales tax (GST), the PIA owed Rs7 billion in federal excise duty and Rs3 billion tax was due from Pakistan Railways.

He said that government actually had frozen releasing of funds for development projects during the last two months of the outgoing fiscal year. This also resulted into lower realisation of revenue as tax projection for the year was made on the basis of total development project funds, he added.

He said that imports registered a negative growth, which also resulted into lower realisation of the revenue during the period. The large-scale manufacturing sector, which contributes maximum revenue, also witnessed a negative growth during the 2008-09.

He said keeping all this in consideration the FBR had achieved its revised target.

Tax-wise data showed that the FBR raised Rs443 billion under the head of direct taxes as against the downward revised target of Rs447.2 billion, showing a negative growth of Rs4.2 billion.

The government introduced universal self-assessment scheme for the last few years giving an option to taxpayers to declare their taxes on their will while so far no effective audit of taxpayers had been carried out.

In developed countries, the assessment scheme had been supported by a strong audit scheme, which was yet to be implemented in the country.

The government raised Rs448 billion as GST as against the revised target of Rs443.4 billion set for the 2008-09, an increase of Rs4.6 billion.

An amount of Rs113.7 billion had been raised under the head of federal excise duty as against the target of Rs117.6 billion, a decline of Rs3.9 billion.

The tax authorities raised Rs148.1 billion customs duty during the fiscal year as against Rs144.6 billion target, showing an increase of Rs3.5 billion.

According to the statistics, the FBR paid out Rs70.8 billion as refund/rebate to taxpayers during the year 2008-09 as against Rs66.4 billion paid last year, showing an increase of six per cent.

An official statement issued by the FBR said a substantial amount of the revenues collected for the month of June 2009 was still in the pipeline and the final figures were likely to be settled by this weekend.