PM Imran lauds FBR on achieving target for Feb

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan has appreciated the Federal Board of Revenue’s (FBR) performance as the board achieved its February revenue target of Rs441 billion.
The prime minister in a tweet on Wednesday stated that the FBR has “successfully knocked down the February revenue target of Rs441 billion” and posted a robust growth of 28.5 percent and a monthly growth of 30 percent.
The prime minister said that his government is able to “subsidies petrol, diesel and electricity and give relief” to the people because of the FBR’s performance.
Earlier on Monday, the prime minister announced a Rs10 per litre reduction in the prices of petrol and diesel as well as a Rs5 per unit cut in the electricity tariff, along with a bonanza of incentives in several areas of the economy. In a televised address to the nation, the prime minister, while acknowledging the hue and cry made by the opposition parties about the runaway inflation, among other things, said that there would be no increase in the petrol, diesel and electricity charges until June 30, 2022.
The FBR exceeded its eight-month tax collection target by Rs268 billion but narrowly avoided missing the monthly target for the third month in a row after slowing down the disbursement of taxpayers’ refunds. Against the original but relatively low tax target of nearly Rs3.53 trillion, the FBR provisionally collected nearly Rs3.8 trillion during the July-February period of the current fiscal year, according to an FBR statement.
However, the FBR’s performance was once again largely dependent on imports that contributed nearly 53 percent to the total collection, which helped camouflage the weaknesses in domestic sales tax collection. – TLTP