By Muhammad Mudassar ISLAMABAD, April 11 (INP-WealthPK): The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) collected Rs3,803 billion taxes during the first eight months of fiscal year 2021-22, which is 30.4% more than the taxes collected during the same period of fiscal 2020-21, according to the data released by the ministry of finance. As per the data, FBR had set the target of collecting Rs3,530 billion taxes during the period under review. However, it exceeded the target by 7.7%, reports WealthPK. Of the total collections, direct taxes increased by 20.1%, sales tax by 34.7%, Federal Excise Duty (FED) by 13.9%, and customs duty by 37.5%. FBR Tax Collection

Taxes	July-Feb 2020-21	July-Feb 2021-22	% Change
Direct Taxes	1056	1321	25.1
Sale Tax	1233	1661	34.7
FED	173	197	13.9
Customs Duties	454	624	37.5
Total	2916	3803	30.4

Source: Ministry of Finance With a 43.7% (Rs1,661 billion) share, sales tax was the largest contributor to the tax revenue followed by direct tax 34.7% (Rs1,321 billion), customs duty 16.4% (Rs624 billion), and FED 5.2% (Rs197 billion). In view of the increase in tax revenue, the government has reduced the prices of petroleum products and electricity, as well as offered tax breaks to the information technology industry. Due to the increased tax revenues, the government is also likely to enhance the scope and outreach of the social welfare projects like the Ehsaas and Sehat Sahulat programmes and disbursement of interest-free loans. Taxes have the potential to stimulate the growth of a country’s economy as they contribute to the gross domestic product, thus raising the standard of living and increasing jobs. However, the government has to broaden the tax net by adding more taxable people to be taxed rather than increase rates of existing taxes. In order to increase the tax revenue, the FBR has also launched the initiative of integrating the big retail outlets with the bureau’s point-of-sale (POS)system. The campaign offers a prize scheme worth Rs53 million that is dispersed among 1,007 lucky winners through a transparent computerised ballot held on 15th of every month. By the end of February, about 249,000 invoices had been verified by customers who visited outlets that were integrated with the FBR POS system, as opposed to 153,000 in January. According to a statement, the FBR management has adopted a new approach to tax collection, aiming to get taxpayers to pay fair amounts of tax. The FBR's fast-track service does not hold refunds, which benefits the business community and alleviates cash liquidity problems. Furthermore, it reduces the trust deficit between the FBR and businesses. The FBR has also introduced a number of innovative interventions, both at the policy and operational levels, designed to maximise revenue potential by utilising digitisation, transparency and taxpayer facilitation.