ISLAMABAD, Oct 3: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has delayed the announcement of collection figures for the first quarter (July-September) of the current fiscal year.

Informed sources told Dawn on Wednesday that the board was facing a shortfall of around Rs20 billion mainly in the leading taxes — income tax, sales tax and central excise duty — during the quarter under review.

Due to this shortfall, the FBR for the second time had failed to announce its monthly revenue collection figures on September 30. The collection data for July 2007 had also been issued with a gap of two days.

The sources said the major reason behind the shortfall was that the FBR had already taken advance taxes from some big taxpayers for meeting the Rs1,025 billion target of the last fiscal year.

The FBR had projected Rs218 billion target for the first quarter of this fiscal which looked very difficult to be achieved.

The adjustment of advance taxes against the liabilities of these taxpayers would result in low revenue collection in the forthcoming months of the current fiscal year, the sources added.

Among other reasons, the sources said lack of monitoring of revenue collection had also led to the shortfall in total collection.