According to the Sindh Revenue Board (SBR), there has been a sudden increase of 13.3 per cent in revenue on annual basis In the first five months of the fiscal year 2018/19 Sindh has emerged as the top province for collecting most of the sales tax on services, hence becoming the Top Tax Collector in Pakistan.
Last year the Sindh Revenue Board had collected Rs31.694 billion between July-November of the last fiscal year. However, this year SRB has collected Rs7.986 billion in November compared to last year when it was Rs6.652 billion in the same month, with a growth of 20.06 %.
The growth has been surprisingly unexpected as the tax on prepaid and postpaid cards was suspended on orders of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Speaking about the growth, SBR said “The success in achieving the growth of 20.06 per cent in the revenue during November 2018 has been made possible because of the continued trust and cooperation of SRB taxpayers, the continuous support by the government of Sindh and the relentless efforts of the SRB employees.”
Furthermore, the numbers by the Punjab Revenue Authority show that they collected Rs35bn in the first five months of the current fiscal year which is a decrease from Rs43bn in the last year. It has also been reported that Khyber Pakhtunkhwa tax authorities did not perform that well as well when it comes to sales tax on services as the tax was reduced to Rs889 million during the July-November period from Rs980m in the same period last year. Balochistan sales tax collection data has not been released yet.
