By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The tax authority collected more than 13 trillion rupees ($46 billion) in the fiscal year that ended on Tuesday, surpassing a downwardly revised target and clearing a benchmark set by the International Monetary Fund, the Federal Board of Revenue said.
The FBR collected 13.004 trillion rupees in the 2025-26 fiscal year, exceeding its revised target of 12.983 trillion rupees by more than 21 billion rupees, the tax authority said in a statement. The total also cleared the 12.957 trillion rupee threshold Pakistan had agreed with the IMF as a fallback benchmark, should the FBR miss its formal target.
The result marks a turnaround from the previous fiscal year, when the tax authority fell short of its own revised goal.
Collections rose 11% from 11.745 trillion rupees in the 2024-25 fiscal year, driven largely by stronger-than-expected income tax receipts, particularly in June.
Pakistan’s government, under an IMF loan programme that requires it to widen its tax base and curb a persistent fiscal deficit, had originally set a full-year revenue target of 14.131 trillion rupees. That goal was cut by 1.127 trillion rupees to 12.983 trillion rupees after consultations with the IMF, as floods, weaker economic activity and the conflict in the Middle East weighed on revenue growth during the year.
Income tax collection totalled 6.579 trillion rupees, above its revised target of 6.528 trillion rupees and up 14% from 5.792 trillion rupees a year earlier.
Sales tax receipts came in just below target, at 4.254 trillion rupees against a goal of 4.255 trillion rupees, though they still rose 9% from 3.902 trillion rupees in the prior year. Customs duty collection reached 1.331 trillion rupees, a shortfall of 18 billion rupees against target but up 4% year-on-year. Federal excise duty brought in 840 billion rupees, short of its 851 billion rupee target but up 10% from the previous year.
A shortfall in those three categories was offset by receipts from the petroleum development levy, which generated 1.564 trillion rupees, beating its target of 1.468 trillion rupees by 96 billion rupees. The levy has become an increasingly important revenue source for Islamabad, which has raised the rate to as much as 120 rupees per litre on petrol. Unlike general sales tax on fuel, which is shared with Pakistan’s provinces under a national finance-sharing formula, revenue from the levy accrues entirely to the federal government. Petroleum products currently carry no general sales tax.
For June alone, the FBR collected 1.770 trillion rupees, above a revised monthly target of 1.753 trillion rupees and up 18% from 1.506 trillion rupees in June of the previous year.
The tax authority issued 598 billion rupees in refunds and rebates during the fiscal year, up 21.3% from 493 billion rupees a year earlier.
The government has set a revenue collection target of 15.264 trillion rupees for the 2026-27 fiscal year, which began on Wednesday.
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