Withholding taxes constitute 27% of overall tax collection

September 11, 2018 (MLN): Around 27% of the overall revenue collected by the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) in the fiscal year 2017-18 came from withholding taxes, which turned out to be one the major spinners of revenue collection in that year.

Taxes collected from this end totalled Rs 1,047 billion during this time frame, compared to Rs 944 billion during FY 2016-17, a ten percent growth over the year. It is also pertinent to mention that about 65 percent of the revenue collected via income taxes, came through withholding taxes.

Contracts, imports, salaries, dividends, telephone, bank interests, cash withdrawals, electricity and exports constitute some of major components of withholding taxes, with almost half the share of withholding taxes coming from contracts and imports alone.

Compared to the previous fiscal, the highest growth among its constituents was witnessed from electricity taxes, which grew by 30.9% or Rs 3.5 billion. The largest growth in absolute terms was however in the taxes collected via contracts that grew by Rs 23.6 billion followed by taxes on imports and salaries, which grew by Rs 21.7 billion and Rs 22.1 billion respectively.

On a whole, total revenue collection by the FBR in FY18 amounted to Rs 3,842 billion, out of which income taxes contributed Rs 1,610 billion, 65% or Rs 1,047 billion of which came through withholding taxes.

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