Minister for
Finance, Revenue and Economic Affairs, Senator Mohammad Ishaq Dar chaired
a meeting on Thursday at the Ministry of
Finance to review the progress of revenue collection, return filing and
awareness campaign undertaken by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR).
Chairman FBR, senior Members of FBR, and senior officials of
the Ministry of Finance were present in the meeting. Chairman FBR briefed the
Finance Minister on revenue collection in the month of September 2017 and
the first quarter of FY 2018, i.e. July-September 2017.
He apprised the Minister of that FBR is on-course
to achieve the tax revenue target for FY 2018. The Finance Minister
expressed satisfaction over the revenue collection efforts being made by
FBR.
Chairman FBR also briefed the Finance Minister regarding the
awareness campaign being run by FBR to educate and convince taxpayers to
fulfil their legal tax obligations. He said that the campaign has started to
translate into results as the number of returns received upto 28th September 2017 has increased to 178,945 compared
with 54,086 returns received till the same date in September 2016.
The Finance Minister appreciated the successful awareness
campaign of FBR and the resulting increase in compliance by taxpayers. During
the meeting, it was decided that the period of applicability of reduced
rate of 0.4% withholding tax on banking transactions for non-filers shall be
extended from 30th September 2017 to 31st December 2017.
The Finance Minister directed FBR to complete the due process in this
regard.
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