ISLAMABAD, Jan 26: Federal Board of Revenue chairman M Abdullah Yousuf has directed the tax officials to tap full potential of various sectors to recover the shortfall of around Rs36 billion recorded in the first half of the current fiscal year.

Chairing 16th National Tax Conference here on Saturday, the FBR chairman said that the ongoing gas and electricity crisis had slowed down business and industrial activities which badly hit revenue generation particularly during December 2007.

He was of the opinion that so far no decision had been taken for revising down 2007-08 revenue target of Rs1,025 billion.

A major fall of over Rs20 billion in income collection was recorded during the period under review over the same period last year.

Mr Yousuf also identified various grey areas which were not the fully tapped for revenue potential. He directed the tax managers to pay special attention on enhancing revenue collection from these areas.

Referring to nominal revenue collection on account of rental income from the properties, the FBR chairman expressed the need to formulate an action plan to tap the tax potential by utilising the computerised data available with different institutions/departments within the provinces.

He reiterated that we had to tackle all such issues in a professional manner.

According to the official announcement, a comprehensive discussion was held on withholding taxes and a number of avenues were marked to unearth the non-deduction by effective monitoring and matching the information being received from different quarters.

Member Income Tax Usman Khalid informed the meeting that disturbances and energy crisis affected the e-filing of corporate returns in December, which is usually considered crucial month for collection of direct taxes.

The FBR has extended the e-filing of tax returns up to January 31, 2008.