ISLAMABAD, May 3: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has asked the tax authorities to collect about Rs107 billion in the May-June period of the current financial year to achieve the thrice downward annual tax collection target of Rs414 billion.
In this regard, official sources told Dawn on Friday, a four-member technical delegation of the Fund led by Junther Taubee will start tax-wise review of all taxes from Saturday.
The CBR had collected around Rs80 billion during the May- June period of the last year.
The Central Board of Revenue (CBR) has provisionally collected Rs304.43 billion during the July-April period of the current financial year against the target of Rs317.89 billion, showing a decline of 4.2 per cent.
According to informed sources, CBR is likely to seek a fourth time revision in the tax collection target for low dutiable imports and with a low GDP growth registered following the 9/11 incident.
Similarly, the tax officials have conceded that with a decline of 2.75 per cent in the exports in the nine months of the current financial year and a drop in the large scale manufacturing, it would be very difficult for them to achieve the thrice revised tax target.
The IMF team will review the performance of the federal taxes to identify the weak areas for improvement, the officials said. The Fund will also make tax collection projection for the next financial year, they said.
The tax authorities will give detailed briefing to the mission to inform them about the actual collection and possible revenue collection in the remaining months of the current financial year.
Despite the levy of 15 per cent general sales tax on the actual price of urea, all kinds of fertilizers and raising of GST from 15 per cent to 20 per cent on more than 200 raw materials and GST on pharmaceuticals, the revenue collection has shown no growth in comparison to the last year.
The revenue collection registered a growth of 12.96 per cent in 2000-01 over the corresponding period of the last year.
The tax authorities have projected around 16 per cent growth in the tax collection during the current financial year, however, the officials said, it would be around 6 per cent in comparison to that of the last year.
The government had earlier revised downward the tax collection target from the budgetary target of Rs457.7 billion to Rs443.7 billion. After the Sept 11 incident, it was further revised to Rs429.9 billion and finally it was reduced to Rs414 billion.