ISLAMABAD, Feb 14: The International Monetary Fund has asked the Central Board of Revenue to collect Rs207.71 billion in the next five months (February-June) of the current financial year to achieve the thrice revised target of Rs415 billion.

Informed sources told Dawn on Thursday that the Fund had finally agreed with the CBR to reduce the target by around Rs14.9 billion owing to extra payment of Rs12 billion rebate/refund to exporters during seven months of the current fiscal and around Rs3 billion impact of the Sept 11 events on the revenue collection.

The decision was taken following the tax-wise detail briefing given to the IMF review mission to inform them about the actual impact of the Sept 11 incidents on the country’s revenue collection.

When contacted, CBR official spokesman and member direct taxes, Vakil Ahmed Khan said the Fund had reduced the target because of the impact of prevailing conditions in the region.

Mr Khan said that if the GDP registered a growth along with growth in other sectors then the target set for the Feb-June period would be achieved easily.

Since 40 per cent of the total revenue comes from the dutiable imports and if these improve in next five months then the CBR would easily meet the target, the sources said.

On the other hand, the sources said, despite the levy of 15 per cent GST on the actual price of urea and levelling of refund in next months, the CBR would hardly collect Rs406 billion in the next five months of the current fiscal.

They said that with a low growth of GDP, a decline of 1.5 per cent in exports and a drop in the large-scale manufacturing, it would be very difficult for the CBR to achieve the thrice revised downward target of the current fiscal.

According to figures available with Dawn, the tax authorities will have to collect Rs35 billion in February, Rs39 billion in March, Rs37 billion in April, Rs40 billion in May and Rs56 billion in June of this fiscal.

The CBR collected Rs207.29 billion during the first seven months of the current financial year against the target of Rs220.6 billion, registering a decrease of 6.03 per cent.

The government had earlier revised downward the tax collection target from the budgetary target of Rs457.7 billion to Rs443.7 billion, while following the Sept 11 incident, it was further reduced to Rs429.9 billion.