Government revenue increased by 10 percent

Irangika RANGE

The total government revenue has increased by 10 percent in the first eight months of last year from Rs.574,588 to Rs. 631,984 mi llion compared to the same period in 2011, an official of the Finance and Planing Ministry said.

He said, the tax revenue has increased by 9.8 percent to Rs. 562,589 million while the non-tax revenue increased by 11.6 percent to Rs. 69,395 million during the same period.

The official said this performance should be viewed in the backdrop of domestic policy measures to curtail import expenditure which had a dampening impact on import trade, thus affecting the trade related taxes while a slowdown in global economic activities, coupled with prolonged drought, had a negative impact on the domestic aggregate demand resulting in a slowdown in the revenue from domestic taxes.

Meanwhile, the revenue from income tax grew by 20.8 percent during the first eight months of 2012. Increase of revenue from corporate and non-corporate income tax and withholding tax has contributed to this growth.

However, revenue from import duty increased marginally by 1.3 percent during this period while the revenue from cess and special commodity levy increased at higher rates of 15.4 percent and 122.6 percent, respectively.

The VAT revenue (net basis) during the January-August period of 2012 increased marginally by 0.3 percent as a combined effect of the performance of domestic VAT and VAT on imports.

Despite the rate revisions on cigarettes, liquor and motor vehicles, the revenue from excise duty increased only by 5.9 percent due to a slowdown in sales and production volume of cigarettes and liquor respectively coupled with lower import volumes of motor vehicles.

The non-tax revenue also increased by 11.6 percent mainly due to the increase of Central Bank profit transfers and sales and charges.