Easier said than done

As PM Imran struggle with tax collection

As is the case with his many other claims, Prime Minister Imran Khan has been struggling with tax collection too. As opposition leader, the PTI chief was never shy of claiming a special talent to double tax receipts — to Rs8 trillion — when in the saddle. The certainty with which he used to raise the very claim during his public addresses and interviews in the media had assured a majority of his supporters that he could virtually do it in a jiffy. In sheer contrast though, his government even failed to meet an ordinary tax collection target for the fiscal year 2018-19. Excluding the Rs36 billion impact of the tax amnesty scheme that was offered to boost revenues, the FBR’s tax collection was a mere Rs3.73 trillion as against the target of Rs4.39 trillion, meaning a revenue shortfall of more than Rs600 billion. A record of sorts: the total tax collection was even lower than in the preceding fiscal year i.e. FY2017-18 which was Rs3.75 billion.

Failures demotivate many, but Imran Khan is rather spurred by them. His cricketing career is the best case in point. Brimful of can-do spirit, Imran, the PM, instead raised the tax collection target by an unprecedented 45% — to a mammoth Rs5.55 trillion — for the ongoing fiscal year i.e. FY2019-20. While this runs the risk of exposing the government to pressure from the IMF to either cut expenditures or introduce a mini-budget to make up for the foreseeable revenue loss, the PM seeks to galvanise the tax machinery to meet a target already dubbed unrealistic. It appears to be in this context that no less than 2,154 FBR employees in BPS-9 to BPS-16 have undergone transfers and posting almost all across the country.

Two major factors have been officially cited as having caused the massive reshuffle. One, the FBR wants its employees long glued to certain positions and locations to gain the experience of working at other locations and in other jobs too. Two, the FBR aims to break the ‘connivance’ between its lower-level staff and taxpayers in the areas where they are stationed. Well, as part of the PM-promised reforms in the FBR, one does expect several other such measures.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2019.

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