Despite a dismal performance in expanding the tax base due to a 34% decline in income tax returns submitted, the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) was able to reach its four-month target of Rs2.14 trillion.
The poor results in expanding the tax base forced Ishaq Dar, the finance minister, to once more extend the deadline for filing reports. The new deadline is November 30; by then, FBR simply needs an additional Rs1.3 million in returns to match the amount from the prior year.
This growth happened more gradually than the then-current inflation rate of 23%, but sufficient to keep the tax department moving forward for the first four months of the fiscal year.
The first four months of the previous fiscal year saw the FBR collect Rs1.84 trillion in tax income, according to the Express Tribune. However, the slowdown in the economy makes it seem as though the FBR would miss its tax targets for the future months.
The FBR missed its monthly tax target of Rs 534 billion by Rs 22 billion due primarily to a decline in imports. The monthly target was not met, despite a 15% rise in revenue over the Rs445 billion brought in in October of last year.
The implications of the poor collection rate by the Customs Department were mainly mitigated by the Inland Revenue Service’s (IRS) achievement of its July-October goal.
The tax system won’t be able to expand the tax base, which decreased by 34% during the previous tax year, as long as less than 2.5 million people file income tax forms. Returns of up to Rs3.8 million have already been filed for the 2021 tax year.
Pakistan had pledged to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that it would raise the tax base by a minimum of 700,000 by extending the tax base to include traders. Instead, it is about Rs1.3 million less than what was collected the year before.
