ISLAMABAD, July 31: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has delayed the announcement of collection figures for the first month (July 2007) of the current fiscal year.

Informed sources told Dawn on Tuesday that for the first time the FBR had failed to announce its monthly revenue collection figures on July 31 as it was facing certain shortfall.

The sources said the major reason was that the FBR had already taken advance taxes from some of big taxpayers for reaching the Rs835bn target of the previous fiscal.

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.

An official in the FBR told Dawn on condition of anonymity that the figures would be announced in a day or two. He, however, did not mention the reasons for delaying the announcement of the figures.