Amid the raging third Covid wave, Pakistan, breaking all previous records, has recorded a historic tax collection of over $26 billion in the first 11 months of the current fiscal year, indicating that the country’s economy is well on the recovery path. 

The figure, 26billion, came when two days are still left in the 11th month of the fiscal year. Officials expect it will further go up by around $130 million in the last two days. This is the highest ever revenue in any fiscal year, and one month is still left in the current fiscal year. 

The revenue collection increased by around 18 percent in comparison to the same period in the last fiscal year. 

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan, taking to Twitter, congratulated the Federal Board of Revenue for “crossing the historic milestone”. “Such performance reflected the broad-based economic revival spurred by his government’s policies,” he said. 

The encouraging figure came days after the country recorded surprising GDP growth of 3.94 percent.

Waqar Masood Khan, the special assistant to the prime minister on revenue and finance, said that crossing the Rs4 trillion (in PKR) mark was a psychological barrier for the FBR. He said FBR revenue collection had been around Rs3.8 trillion (in PKR) for the past three years.

However, while preparing the budget last year, the government had assured the International Monetary Fund (IMF), of raising around $32 billion in taxes. Later, the IMF revised the target downwards to $30 billion due to the disruption caused by the pandemic. 

For the next fiscal year, the IMF has given a target of around $38 billion. Shaukat Tarin, the country’s finance minister, however, said it will keep the target lower than what was proposed by the IMF. 
 

(SAM)