ISLAMABAD: *In a setback, International Monetary Fund rejects the Pakistangovernment request for the revision in revenue target of Rs 5.5 trillion.*
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has rejected the government’s requestfor a downward revision in the revenue target for the ongoing fiscal year(FY20), adding to the difficulties of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR),which already recorded a revenue shortfall of over Rs160 billion in thefirst quarter of FY20.
FBR Chairman Shabbar Zaidi has confirmed that the IMF has not accepted therequest to reduce the revenue target of Rs5.5 trillion set for FY20. He,however, claimed that talks with the IMF for flexibility in the target werestill underway.
“We are hopeful that IMF will consider our request,” Zaidi said whiletalking to media after a meeting of the Senate’s Standing Committee onFinance and Revenue on Monday.
In reply to a query, the FBR chairman said that proposals regarding theestablishment of Pakistan Revenue Authority have been postponed “butreforms in the FBR were being introduced”.
“The restructuring process of FBR is well underway. It’s only that thetimeline for restructuring has been changed,” he said, adding that acommittee has been formed to supervise the proposed restructuring of theboard.
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Earlier, while briefing the committee, the FBR chairman stated that thepowers of Customs would not be transferred for the next two years. Onlythose officials against whom there were complaints were being targeted, headded.
Giving the details of revenue collected so far in the Financial Year2019-20, Zaidi informed the committee that FBR has collected Rs1,280billion in the first four months of FY20, as against the target of Rs1,447billion. He maintained that the figure was 16.3pc higher than in the sameperiod of last year.
The committee was informed that 888,748 out of 2,655,081 return filers werenew taxpayers and that the number of individuals that availed the AssetDeclaration Ordinance 2019, stood at 124,208.
