ISLAMABAD: The revenue collection of the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) grew by 17 per cent with additional revenues of Rs345 billion in the first seven months of the current fiscal year (FY20), compared with the corresponding period of last year.

Against the target of Rs920 billion for the period between July-January (FY20), the FBR accumulated Rs897.5 billion income tax as compared to the collection of Rs749.1 billion in the corresponding months of last year, showing an increase of 18.1pc, said a statement issued by the bureau on Sunday.

Likewise, against Rs1,039 billion target of sales tax collection as of January 2020, an amount of Rs996.6 billion has been collected with a growth of 24.7pc compared to the corresponding period in the last year in which Rs799.1 billion were collected.

An amount of Rs145.1 million has been collected under federal excise duty against the target of Rs151 billion for the first seven months of the current fiscal year, which showed an increase of 23.6pc.

The customs duty collection target was set at Rs399 billion till January 2020. The FBR managed to collect Rs373.8 billion compared to Rs390.6 billion last year in the same months.

So far the bureau has collected Rs2,407.7 billion against the target of Rs2,509 billion, which has witnessed an increase of 16.7pc compared to last year when Rs2,062.7 billion were collected.

The domestic tax collection has also recorded an increase of 28pc. Domestic sales tax has also increased by 41pc from July 2019 to January 2020. The total domestic revenue of Rs1,339.91 billion has been collected compared to last year’s Rs1,057.60 billion. Revenue at import stage has grown by 6pc against the budgeted target of 36.8pc.

FBR issued Rs54 billion of additional refunds this year compared to last year. The total refunds of Rs131.01 billion have been released till January 2020, whereas in the last year the refunds of Rs76.71 billion were issued. FBR has also released the refunds detail issued through FASTER system.

The total number of refunds claims cases where Annex-H submitted were 6,081 with a claimed amount of Rs37,614 million. The FASTER system has processed 4,606 cases with a claimed amount of Rs33,364 million, showing a percentage of 89.99pc of total cases.

After the processing of such cases, total refunds of Rs29,303 million have been issued, showing a percentage of 87.47pc of processed cases. Through the FASTER system, Rs4,061 million were deferred due to want of required data.

Up to February 29, 2020, total returns for the Tax Year 2019 were 2,483,866, whereas 373,877 new taxpayers paid taxes in the Tax Year 2019.