PESHAWAR, Jan 29: In line with the previous financial years, NWFP continued to record dismal performance under the agriculture income tax head as the provincial tax collection authorities could recover only 21 per cent of the total annual target set for the current financial year, sources told Dawn on Monday.

According to official sources, the province collected a total of Rs13.9 million on account of land tax and agriculture income tax during the first half of financial year 2001-2002, making some 21.5 per cent of the total annual target and 43 per cent of the proportionate target the province should have received by the close of that period.

Of that amount, sources said, the province received some Rs14 million under the land tax head and remaining over Rs500,000 from the agriculture income tax.

Under the newly-enforced land tax and agriculture income tax ordinance 2001, the provincial government separated land tax from agriculture income tax in an attempt to expand the tax net.

However, the sources said, the move appeared to be counter-productive as NWFP was not likely to achieve what it had managed to raise during the last year of chief minister Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan’s government when the province had ended up with total collection of over Rs70 million under the agriculture income tax head.

“The new piece of law could not yield the desired results as the province continued to show poor performance under the agriculture income tax head in line with the past several years,” said official sources.

The province recorded a gap of over Rs16 million under the land tax component under which a total of Rs31 million should have been received by the end of the first six months of the current financial year.

The revenue raised makes some 45 per cent of the total target the province should have received on proportionate basis at the end of the first half of the fiscal year on Dec 31, 2001.

Similarly, recoveries under the agriculture income tax component also remained much less than the desired results, making the new piece of law a failure.

The provincial government has introduced new law to net the big land holdings. However, the six months recovery position of the provincial government clearly reflects that the new law could not deliver the desired results.

Rather, the agriculture income tax base that had been attained under the previous legislation was, apparently, lost.

The province received just over Rs500,000 under the agriculture income tax component of the land tax and agriculture income tax ordinance 2001.

The revenue raised makes some 10 per cent of the total annual target the province is supposed to collect under this component during the whole of year and 22 per cent of the amount the province had eyed to raise during the first six months of the current fiscal year.