ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) failed to maintain last year’s performance on the collection of withholding tax from mobile phone operators as tax department revenue collection stands Rs 579 million short in the first seven months of current fiscal compared to same period of last fiscal year.
Documents available with Pakistan Today indicate that the tax department has collected Rs 27.484 billion tax from mobile phone operators during the first seven months of the current fiscal year whereas it had collected Rs 28.064 billion in the first seven months of the previous fiscal year 2016-17.
Currently, Pakistan has 145 million mobile subscribers and five telecom companies providing services.
FBR collected Rs 2.789 billion in July, Rs 3.428 billion in August, Rs 4.584 billion in September, Rs 4.318 billion in October, Rs 4.052 billion in November, Rs 4.526 billion in December and Rs 3.783 billion in January 2018.
On the other hand, the department collected Rs 4.425 billion in July 2016, Rs 1.573 billion in August, Rs 6.186 billion in September, Rs 3.258 billion in October, Rs 3.906 billion in November, Rs 6.136 billion in December and Rs 2.577 billion in January 2017.
It is pertinent to mention here that the mobile companies’ data has been linked to FBR systems and the department is being updated on a regular basis.
It is worth mentioning here that the government had decreased the withholding tax on mobile phone operators from 14 to 12.5 per cent.
