ISLAMABAD, Nov 30: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) on Friday claimed to have collected revenue amounting to Rs333.6 billion during the first five months of the current fiscal year, which is up by 12.6 per cent from Rs296.3 billion last year.

The official figures released here, however, reveal that the growth in revenue collection materialised on the back of substantial decline in payment of refunds by almost 50 per cent (Rs20 billion) to taxpayers of all the federal taxes — income tax, sales tax, federal excise duty (FED) and customs duty during the period under review.

It is believed that tax authorities withheld the genuine refunds of taxpayers, which helped tax authorities to achieve the revenue collection target for the period under review.

Total refunds paid stood at Rs20.648 billion in July-November this year as against Rs41.137 billion last year.

The tax-wise break-up showed that the payment of income tax refunds to taxpayers declined to Rs4.862 billion in July-November period this year as against Rs15.494 billion last year.

The same trend of decline was witnessed in the payment of sales tax, FED and customs refunds. The sales tax refunds declined by 38.9 per cent to Rs11.578 billion during the period under review against Rs18.947 billion last year.

A decline of 37.2 per cent was recorded in payment of customs refunds to taxpayers and it stood at Rs4.208 billion in July-Nov this year as against Rs6.696 billion last year.

The FED refund dipped by 91.7 per cent to Rs8 million during the period under review against Rs96 million last year.

According to the statistics, even the overall provisional figures collection was up by Rs1.1 billion during the July-November period of the current fiscal year when compared with the target of Rs332.5 billion set for the same period.

Tax-wise collection showed that revenue on account of direct taxes reached Rs110 billion in July-November this year as against Rs96.5 billion last year, showing an increase of 14 per cent.

The sales tax collection stood at Rs142.1 billion during the period under review as against Rs125.7 billion, indicating a growth of 13 per cent whereas the growth in sales tax import stage was 12.4 per cent and domestic sales tax collection increased by 13.9 per cent, respectively, during the period under review over last year.Tax receipts on account of federal excise duties recorded an increase of 24.1 per cent, touching Rs31 billion against Rs25 billion in the past. The collection on account of customs duty stood at Rs50.6 billion as against Rs49.14 billion last year, an increase of 2.9 per cent.

On monthly basis, the revenue collection stood at Rs62.1 billion in November 2007 against Rs59 billion last year, indicating a growth of 5.25 per cent.