ISLAMABAD: Revenues collected from internal resources as well as privatisation proceeds have declined in the outgoing fiscal year, but loans and grants from foreign resources have registered an increase.

Despite the decline in revenue collection in 2016-17, the collection target has been increased to Rs4,713 billion in the federal budget for 2017-18.

The Gross Revenue Receipts comprise internal resources, external resources and privatisation proceeds.

In the last budget, the government set a revenue collection target of Rs4,441.96bn, but it managed to collect Rs4,099.8bn instead.

The decline in collections was mainly due to drop in key components of internal resources.

In the outgoing year the collections from internal resources have amounted to Rs3,230.49bn against a target of Rs3,759.26bn, a shortfall of about 14 per cent.

For 2017-18 the target for collections from internal resources has been enhanced to Rs3,913.9bn.

Meanwhile, in the outgoing year the government has been able to bag only Rs17.77bn in privatisation proceeds against a target of Rs50bn. For the upcoming fiscal this target has not been changed.

For the outgoing year, the net revenue receipts of the federal government have been revised downwards by 5.9 per cent to Rs2,616bn against the target of Rs2,779bn. The net revenue receipt of the federal government is obtained after shares of the provinces are taken away from the gross revenue figure.

For the upcoming fiscal the federal government has set the target for net revenue receipts at Rs2,926 billion, an increase of 5.3 per cent as compared to the outgoing year.

There has been a significant decline in collections from the tax as well as non-tax sources of revenue.

In the outgoing year the tax authorities managed to surpass the target set for indirect taxes. On the other hand the target set for collection of direct taxes was Rs1,558bn but the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) managed to collect Rs1,378.84bn.

The direct taxes include income tax, workers welfare fund and capital value tax and its target for 2017-18 is Rs1,594.9bn.

While the income tax collection in the outgoing fiscal fell to Rs1,363.8bn against a target of Rs1,538.75bn, its target for the upcoming fiscal year has been fixed at Rs1,577.5bn.

Against a target of Rs2,063bn, the FBR bagged Rs2,142.1bn in indirect taxes, and its target for the upcoming fiscal has been fixed at Rs2,418.09bn.

Collections made during the outgoing year from other tax resources include Airport Tax (Rs70m), Gas Infrastructure Development Cess (Rs80bn), Petroleum Levy (Rs155bn), Natural Gas Development Surcharge (Rs65bn) and collections from other indirect taxes was Rs4.16bn.

In the upcoming fiscal the government plans to collect Rs110bn on account of GIDC, Rs160bn on Petroleum Levy and Rs43bn on Natural Gas Development Surcharge.

Similarly, the non-tax revenue has declined in the outgoing fiscal year to Rs912.11bn against a target of Rs959.45bn.

Published in Dawn, May 27th, 2017