The seriousness of the incumbent government to address the economic challenges could be judged from the fact that Finance Ministry has yet to inform the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) officially about downward revision of tax collection target for the ongoing financial year 2013-2014.
Finance Minister Senator Ishaq Dar in early March 2014 had informed the media that the government has revised the revenue collection target downward to Rs 2345 billion from budgeted target of Rs 2475 billion after facing huge revenue shortfall.
“The finance ministry has not askedthe FBR to revise the tax collection target yet and it (FBR) has still the target of Rs 2475 billion”, said Shahid Hussain Asad, Member (Inland Revenue-Policy), who is also official spokesman of the FBR while talking to reporters. “We have been informed by other unofficial ways regarding downward revision in annual tax collection target,” he added.