3:21 AM
McGhori
KARACHI: The Sindh government expects to generate higher revenue during the current fiscal year upon linking collection of infrastructure cess at customs stage with newly rolled out auto-clearance system, Web-Based One Customs (WeBOC), at all the container terminals of the ports.
The infrastructure cess constitutes up to 60 per cent of total revenue collected by the province, therefore, auto system is going to bring an improvement by 10 to 15 per cent in collection, stated director-general Excise & Taxation, Sindh Mohammad Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui here on Monday.
Talking to FTNews in his office, he said the auto collection of the cess would check defaults and other malpractices. Therefore, the department expects improvement in its collection.
He said infrastructure cess is being collected at 0.8 to 0.85 per cent of the value of import consignments and its chargeability depends upon weigh and distance the goods will move through the province.
He disclosed that the system was first rolled out in the middle of last year at Port Qasim for auto-clearance of import/export consignments and subsequently it was launched at all the three container terminals Qasim International Container Terminal (QICT), Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT) and Karachi International Container Terminal (KICT).
As a result of this, DG Excise and Taxation Sindh said that for the last one month the entire collection of infrastructure cess at customs stage had been computerised.
This would mean that without payment of infrastructure cess at the customs stage, the Goods Declaration (DG) document will not allow clearance of consignments from port area and this would ensure full collection of the cess.
Responding to a question, he said six taxes are collected by his department, including motor vehicle tax, excise duty, professional tax, cotton fee and hotel tax and the provincial budget 2011-12 had set revenue collection target at Rs22.49 billion compared to Rs21 billion recovered last fiscal year.
However, under the 18th amendment, he said collection of property tax and entertainment duty had been devolved to provincial governments which were being collected by local governments.
Mohammad Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui further said that on average annual revenue collection of property tax and entertainment duty comes to Rs2.5 billion.
He said that during the current fiscal year, there would be a big shortfall in collection of cotton fee because of extensive damage caused by heavy rains and floods to standing cotton crop in the province last year.
But he was still hopeful that revenue collection target of Rs22.49 billion set for current fiscal would be surpassed.
Similarly, he said that excise duty collection during first six months (July-Dec) of current fiscal was short at Rs1.035 billion over the corresponding period of last fiscal when collection stood at Rs1.278 billion.
However, Mr Siddiqui said that during next six months of current fiscal year, efforts would be made to recover the shortfall in excise duty collection. He explained that closure of Murree Brewery for last five months caused the shortfall because the department was unable to collect excise duty on sale of its products in the province.
Nevertheless, he said revenue collection on account of all other taxes and levies during first six months of current fiscal has improved.
Giving details, the director-general Excise and Taxation said that collection of motor vehicle tax increased to Rs1.379 billion from Rs1.197 billion recorded in the corresponding period last year.
He further said that collection of professional tax increased to Rs148 million from Rs141 million collected in the same period last year, hotel tax stood at Rs71 million as against Rs62 million last fiscal, property tax collected Rs929 million from Rs897 million and entertainment duty rose to Rs13 million from Rs11 million last year.
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