KARACHI: The Sindh Board of Revenue (SBR) has collected Rs100.2 billion in sales tax, surpassing its target of Rs100bn. This reflects a growth of 28 per cent over the previous year when collection amounted to Rs78bn.

SBR has maintained a high growth rate for the second consecutive year despite the fact that Sindh has the lowest rate of sales tax on services at 13pc amongst the federating units.

Giving details, an official of SBR told Dawn that collected amount included Rs92.2bn collected on account of Sindh sales tax on services and the remaining Rs8bn from Sindh Workers Welfare Fund and Sindh Workers Profit Participation Fund.

He further said that ever since the sales tax on services was transferred to provinces, Sindh has been collecting much higher revenues as compared to federal transfers made in the past on this account of sales tax on services by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).

Similarly, he said currently the province is getting a meagre amount from federal government on account of sales tax on goods and at retail-end but he was optimistic that once these are also transferred to provinces, their collection could also increase manifold.

A record increase of 77pc in collection of sales tax on services was achieved in the last month (June) of 2017-18, registering an amount of Rs18.03bn. It is also the highest-ever collection made during any month since the inception of SBR in 2011.

The same official was optimistic about achieving next year’s (2018-19) revenue target of Rs120bn which stands 20 per cent higher than 2017-18 target and added that SBR has never missed any of its revenue targets given by the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, July 3rd, 2018