ISLAMABAD: Finance Minister Ishaq Dar on Tuesday asked tax officials to gear up efforts for showing close to 30 per cent growth in revenue collection in the last quarter of this fiscal year to reach the downward revised revenue collection target.

“Show me growth in revenue collection otherwise I will open my office in Federal Board of Revenue (FBR),” the finance minister warned the tax officials; giving them a clear message that he will monitor their performance.

Dar reached here on Tuesday from Washington after attending meetings with IMF officials. Soon after his arrival, he landed in the FBR to show his displeasure over the shortfalls in revenue collection witnessed in March 2014.

“I was told in London that the FBR has failed to achieve its target for the month of March,” finance minister told the tax officials and asked them to collect the remaining Rs770bn (Rs256.7bn per month) in the April-June period of 2013-14.

All the chief commissioners were called in on Tuesday to work out ways and means for showing growth in revenue collection to reach the target. The third IMF review is scheduled by the end of the current month, which will set the tone of revenue collection in the last quarter.

Privately, tax officials estimate that revenue collection will evolve around Rs700bn in the April-June period of 2014, a growth of over 17pc from the previous collection of Rs594bn during the same period last year.

The target set for the fourth quarter (April-June 2014) was Rs770bn to reach the downward revised target of Rs2,345bn by the end of June 2014.

As per targets, revenue collection should be Rs196.4bn this month as against Rs193.2bn collected during the same month last year, a projected growth of 28pc.

For May 2014, the growth in revenue collection was projected at 26.7pc as revenue target was fixed at Rs219.5bn this year as against Rs173.3bn collected over the corresponding month of last year.

For June 2014, it was projected a growth of 34.2pc for the month’s collection at Rs359.1bn this year as against Rs267.6bn over the corresponding month of last year.

But contrary to these projected growths, the actual growth in revenue collection in the first quarter (July-Sept) was 15.5pc, 16pc in second quarter (Oct-Dec) and around 16.4pc in the third quarter (Jan-Mar).

Tax experts believe a shortfall of Rs70bn to Rs80bn in the fourth quarter.

An official said the negative growth in customs collection despite the fact that payment of rebate/refund also witnessed a decline of around 13pc was one of the reasons for shortfall in revenue collection this fiscal year.

Dar said that he wanted to achieve the revenue collection target to keep the budget deficit within the projected limit of 6.3pc for 2013-14. But in case of shortfall, the government will have to make a cut in development expenditures.