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May 12, 2015 Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) has clarified news item regarding negative revenue collection by certain Regional Tax Offices (RTOs), saying the news is not correct as it portrays only one aspect of work of RTO. The tax amount mentioned in the news item is only one of the many taxes collected at the RTOs. The actual figures of total revenue collection attributed to different RTOs are evident from following chart which clearly shows that the 11 RTOs quoted in recent news item collected Rs 420,520 million tax revenue as against Rs 4,925 million administrative expenditure that is only 1.2 per cent of taxes collected by them during year 2013-14.
It is added that during last financial year, FBR’s total tax collection was Rs 2,254 billion and total expenditure of all offices of FBR was 0.68 % of total tax collection. Even the office with highest collection cost had at most a 4.2 per cent expenditure and not over 100 per cent as alleged in media. Pakistan collects federal taxes in a most efficient manner and amongst lowest as compared to other countries. For example, Malaysia has 1.4 % tax collection costs and South Africa has 1.1 % cost of tax collection. Compared to 0.68 % of Pakistan, Singapore’s revenue collection agency gets expenditure at 5 % of tax collection. FBR has collected tax last year at increase of 17 % more over its preceding year of 2013, and this year too, will collect tax in excess of last year. |
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Hamid Raza Wattoo |
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