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Evidence-Based Revenue Forecasting FY 2021-22

The Evidence-Based Revenue Forecasting FY 2021-22 is part of the federal budget for FY 2021-22. This page reproduces the text of its 15 PDF pages, extracted automatically from the official PDF published by the Finance Division, Government of Pakistan.

This text was extracted automatically from the PDF's text layer. Tables may lose their column alignment, and a page with no text layer is marked rather than guessed. Check the official PDF before relying on any figure.

Page 1

 Evidence-Based Revenue Forecasting FY 2021-221

                 (FBR Taxes)

                 June 2021

    Strategic Planning Reforms & Statistics Wing

1 Revenue Forecasting Report has been prepared in consultation with team of experts from Fiscal Policy
Center, Pakistan Institute Development Economics (PIDE), Islamabad

Page 2

                       List of Acronyms

CD               Customs Duty
CFY                Current Fiscal Year
EBRF              Evidence-Based Revenue Forecasting

FBR                Federal Board of Revenue

FED                Federal Excise Duty
FY                    Fiscal Year
GDP                Gross Domestic Product

LSM               Large Scale Manufacturing

PFY                Previous Fiscal Year
ST(D)              Sales Tax (Domestic)
ST(M)              Sales Tax (Imports)

Page 3

 Contents

1.  FBR Collection Profile…………………………..……………………………….4
       1.1   Five Year Growth Trend/Tax-GDP ratio…………………………..4
       1.2  CFY Collection ………………………………………………….……5

2.  Evidence-Based Revenue Forecasting (EBRF) FY 2021-22………………6
       2.1  Methodology……………………………………………………..……6
       2.2   Head-wise Revenue Forecasts……………………………………10

3.  Concluding Remarks.…………………………………………………..………12

    Annex-I………………….……………………………………………….….…13

    Annex-II……………………….……………………………………………....14
    Annex-III…………………………….…………………………………….…..15

Page 4

1.   FBR Collection Profile
Major part of government tax revenues is collected by FBR. A substantial increase in
the tax collections has been witnessed during last two decades. FBR tax collection
was just around Rs.392 billion in 2000-01 which has jumped to around Rs.4 trillion in
2019-20. The average growth  till FY 2017-18 remained 14.1%, however, due to
Covid-19 pandemic the yearly growth has plummeted, thus affecting slightly the
average annual growth for the period 2001-2020 as well (13.9%).

1.1   Five Years FBR Collection Trend
The last five years’ collection trend is shown in the following table. The 5 years
average growth was 9.3%, however, by excluding the last two years, average growth
for normal years i.e. FY 2013-14 to FY 2017-18 stands at 14.6% (Table 1).
                      Table 1: FBR Collection Trend

                                                                                                  5 Years
  Tax                                                                                               Avg.
         2013-14    2014-15    2015-16    2016-17    2017-18    2018-19    2019-20
 Heads                                                                                      Growth
                                                                                                           (%) *

  DT     877,255   1,033,720  1,217,474  1,344,226  1,536,583  1,445,508  1,523,445     15.7

  ST     996382   1087790   1,302,371  1,328,965  1,485,306  1,459,213  1,596,877     12.2

  FED    138084    162248    188,055    197,911    213,493    238,186    250,474      12.1

  CD    242810    306220    404,572    496,772    608,373    685,575    626,612      21.0

  Total   2,254,531  2,589,978  3,112,472  3,367,874  3,843,755  3,828,482  3,997,408     14.6
 (*) for the Years 2013-14 to 2017-18

Tax-GDP Ratio
Similarly, in the tax-GDP ratio, similar trend has been noticed and it kept on rising till
FY 2017-18 and reached 11.2 (Graph 1), but later on this healthy trend couldn’t
continue during FY 2018-19 and FY 2019-20, which is mainly attributed to Covid-19
pandemic related economic challenges.

Page 5

                      Graph 1: FBR: Tax-GDP Ratio
            12.0                                           11.1
                                     10.7      10.6
                                                                  10.1
            10.0               9.4                                            9.58                   9.0

              8.0

              6.0

              4.0

              2.0

              0.0
                   2013-14    2014-15   2015-16    2016-17   2017-18    2018-19   2019-20

1.2  CFY Collection: July-March 2020-21
After a slow growth in previous two years now the collection is picking up, which is
evident from table 2. This performance is very encouraging as compared to previous
couple of years. The nine months target has been achieved to the extent 103.4%.

                Table 2: CFY Collection: July-March 2020-21
                                                            Rs. Million
   Tax Heads              2020-21          2019-20      Growth (%)

   DT                     1,246,379         1,142,286           9.1

   ST                     1,415,770         1,250,222          13.2

   FED                    191,686          186,472            2.8

   CD                     541,049          481,478           12.4

   TOTAL                 3,394,885         3,060,458          10.9

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With the recovery of economy the revenue collection is also improving, and with
further improvements in coming months hope the tax collection shall also increase,
thus enabling FBR to achieve its revenue FY 2021-22 target.

2.    Evidence-Based Revenue Forecasting (EBRF) FY 2021-22

FBR collects Direct Taxes (DT), Sales Tax (Domestic & Imports), Federal Excise
Duty (FED) and Customs Duties (CD). In this study tax-wise buoyancy estimates
have been used to forecast the FBR head-wise revenues for FY 2021-22. The tax
buoyancy is an indicator to measure efficiency and responsiveness of revenue
mobilization  in response to growth  in the GDP or national income. A buoyant
tax means the tax revenues increase more than proportionately in response to a rise
in national income/GDP/base.

2.1   Methodology

The SPRS Wing before budget, projects the head-wise revenue estimates based on
buoyancy estimates2 from previous years on  rolling basis. Tax-wise buoyancy
estimates are calculated by using historical collection and respective bases data.
The current tax-wise buoyancy estimates are estimated from data for the years
1999-2000 to 2019-20 in respect of economic indicators i.e. GDP, Non-agri GDP,
LSM and Imports.3
The respective proxy bases of head-wise FBR taxes are as under:
          Direct Taxes (DT)                  Non-agri GDP
         Sales Tax Domestic (STD)         Large Scale Manufacturing (LSM)
         Sales Tax Imports (STM)           Import Value
        Customs Duties (CD)               Dutiable Import Value
         Federal Excise Duty (FED)       LSM

2 Buoyancy is relationship between changes in actual revenues and changes in proxy tax base from
National Accounts data.
3 Annex-I and Annex II

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                       % Change in Actual
                                    Revenues
Buoyancy estimates are derived as =    % Change in
                                         Respective Base
Since these tax bases have a dynamic relationship with GDP, in the second step we
have calculated the buoyancies of these tax bases with GDP =.
                % Change in
                              Respective Base
                % Change in GDP
Finally these two are multiplied to arrive at respective tax to GDP buoyancies=

      % Change in             % Change in
           Actual Revenues                   Respective Base                          X
      % Change in             % Change in GDP
           Respective Base

Using these buoyancy estimates autonomous growth for each tax is estimated by
using the projections provided by Finance Division for each proxy base.4 It provides
for the GDP Growth and inflation forecast for upcoming year. GDP value used for
this projection of growth  is Gross Value Addition of Sectors at Constant Factor
Costs. Using the inflation forecasts these GDP growth estimates are converted into
GDP growth estimates at Current Factor Cost. Further, GDP-Gross value addition at
Current Factor Cost is used for measuring the Buoyancy estimates to be used for
revenue forecasts.

In respect of Direct Taxes (DT) Non-Agri GDP has been taken as its proxy base. The
buoyancy of direct taxes has been estimated in two steps: in the first step Direct Tax
to Non-Agri GDP and in second step Non-Agri-GDP to GDP (Gross Value Addition-
Current Factor Cost)  is estimated. Then two buoyancy estimates have been
multiplied to estimate the Direct Taxes to GDP Buoyancy estimates.
                               % Change in DirectDirect taxes to Non-Agri GDP Buoyancy (B1) =
                                                  Taxes
                               % Change in Non-Agri
                                      GDP
4 Finance Division provides the macroeconomic framework for the next fiscal year along with rolling
estimates for next two years in their Medium Term Budget Strategy Paper (2021-22 to 2023-24).

Page 8

Non-Agri GDP to GDP Buoyancy (B2)       =       % Change in Non-Agri
                                      GDP
                               % Change in GDP
Direct taxes to GDP Buoyancy            = B1 * B2

Similarly  for Customs (CD) the proxy base  is  dutiable  imports, whereas  the
projections as provided by Finance Division are for the total imports. Therefore, the
buoyancy has been estimated in two steps: first Customs to dutiable imports and in
second step Dutiable Imports to  total Imports and then these two have been
multiplied to get the CD buoyancy estimates.

For Federal Excise (FED) and Sales Tax (Domestic) the base  is Large Scale
Manufacturing (LSM) and for Sales Tax (Imports) the base is imports. Therefore, for
these taxes the buoyancy values are directly estimated from proxy bases. Following
table reflects the respective buoyancies which are estimated using simple log-log
regression method in excel sheet by using log values of actual data for taxes.5
    Table 3:                Buoyancy Results

     Direct Tax (DT)
                DT to Non-Agri GDP     Non-Agri-GDP to GDP      DT to GDP

                                1.1                      0.99                    1.13
    Sale Tax-Domestic (STD)                                                  1.11
    Sales Tax-Imports (STM)                                                  0.92

    Customs (CD)
                                                               Customs to
                  Custom-Dutiable Imports  Dutiable Imports to Imports      Imports
                             0.95                      0.95                    0.90
   FED                                                                      0.77

5 Source: FBR Annual Reports and Economic Survey of Pakistan

Page 9

Calculating Autonomous Growth
In the second step autonomous growth has been estimated by multiplying buoyancy
estimates (Table 3) to projected growths of respective bases (Table 4):6
              Table 4:    Growth Assumptions for FY 2021-22
       Macroeconomic Indicators          Projected Growths (%)7
          GDP (Nominal)                        13.22
          LSM (Nominal)                        14.70
                  Imports                            12.00
                      Inflation                             8.20
           GDP (Real)                           5.02
           LSM (Real)                           6.50

Table 5 provides an autonomous growth parameters for each tax head. These are
based on the buoyancy estimates from the last 20 years actual revenue collection
data and  the macroeconomic  proxy bases  provided by  Pakistan Bureau  of
Statistics/Annual Economic Surveys and the growth projections published in Budget
Strategy Paper / Economic Adviser’s Wing, Finance Division.
                     Table 5:    Autonomous Growth
        [Base Growth * Buoyancy]        Autonomous Growth (%)
    DT (GDP non-agri * DT Buoyancy)                14.89
       ST(D) (LSM * STD Buoyancy)                  16.31
     STM (Imports * STM Buoyancy)                 11.03
     CD (Imports * CD Buoyancy)                  10.85
      FED (LSM * FED Buoyancy)                  11.30

6 Autonomous growth depends on macroeconomic indicators and assumption of tax structure being
able to capture revenue from these as per past performance. A higher growth in base will lead
towards higher independent growth in respective taxes and thus higher projected collection.
7 Source Medium Term Budget Strategy Paper 2021-22 to 2023-24  / Economic Adviser’s Wing,
Finance Division

Page 10

These autonomous growths will be used to project the autonomous growth estimates
of respective revenue heads.
To be sure of the results robustness a small exercise was also done by using the
reduced and increased nominal growths by 10%. The resulting change was
insignificant.

2.2   Head-wise Revenue Projections FY 2021-22
The autonomous growth (Table 5) has been applied on base year’s expected
collection (i.e. 2020-21) for each respective head to project an increase of Rs. 636
billion. This addition has been added in the expected collection of FY 2020-21 thus,
the revenue forecast for FY 2021-22 without additional Policy/Admn measures has
been obtained to the tune of Rs. 5,336 billion. The required growth over the
expected  collection  of FY 2020-21  i.e. Rs. 4,700  billion would be 13.5%  in
FY 2021-22. However, with the addition of Policy/Admn measures the target for
FY 2021-22 would be Rs. 5,829 billion, which  is near to IMF suggestion  i.e.
requiring a growth of about 24.0%.

Page 11

               Table 6: Revenue Projections for FY 2021-22
                                                                   (Rs. Billion)
 Base Growth Assumptions   Buoyancy Estimates   Autonomous growth
      Sectors      %                         %
                                                DT (GDPN *
GDP (Nominal)         13.22  DT              1.13                        14.89                                                         DTBuoy)
                                                            ST(D) (LSMN *
LSM(Nominal)          14.70  ST D            1.11                        16.31                                                        STDBuoy)
                                              STM (Imports *
Total Imports           12.00 STM            0.92                        11.03                                                      STMBuoy)
                                            CD (Imports *
Inflation                8.20  Customs         0.90                        10.85                                                       CDBuoy)
                                                FED (LSMN *
GDP (Real)             5.02  FED             0.77                        11.30                                                        FEDBuoy)
LSM (Real)             6.50

                  DT   ST(D)   ST(I)   CD    FED       Total
Expected Base
                      1,789   934   1,002    700    275           4,700
Figures 2020-21
Projection (2021-22)
with Autonomous       266   152   111     76     31            636
Growth
FBR Projections       2,055  1,086  1,113    776    306                                                                     5,336
without measures FY
                        ST   2,199                   Req.2021-22                                                                13.5
                                         (total)                        Growth
 (*) This excludes Policy/Admn Measures and consists of projection due to autonomous growth

Page 12

Concluding Remarks

It has been found that the overall FBR taxes are buoyant (1.04 overall buoyancy)
and there is a potential for increase in tax revenues provided that macroeconomic
indicators are doing well.  It is evident from last 20 years data that FBR revenues
increased substantially with around 14% average growth. The head-wise break-up
reveals that the direct taxes are most buoyant with I.13 buoyancy value, followed by
sales tax (domestic) with 1.11 buoyancy estimates. On the other hand, sales tax
(imports), customs and FED have  relatively lesser buoyancies.  In  this regard,
addressing the issues  of narrow base, unnecessary exemptions and valuation
problems at import stage can be instrumental for making these tax heads more
buoyant, thus enabling the revenue organization to fetch more tax revenues.

The revenue forecast for FY 2021-22 by applying the buoyancy estimates and
projected respective macroeconomic indicators would be Rs.5,336 billion without
Policy/Admn measures. After adding Policy/Admn measures the target would be
Rs.5,829  billion. However the revenue collection and achieving of target would
largely depend on the performance of the economy against the targets.

Page 13

Annex-I
                 Net Tax collection 2000-01 to 2019-20 (Rs. Million)
 S.No     FY       Direct Taxes   ST Imports    ST Dom     FED     Customs       Total
  1     2000-01      124,585       88,554       65,011      49,080     65,047     392,277
  2     2001-02      142,505       92,779       73,782      47,186     47,818     404,070
  3     2002-03      151,898       105,605      89,534      44,754     68,836     460,627
  4     2003-04      165,079       125,875      93,292      45,552     91,045     520,843
  5     2004-05      183,372       144,845      93,692      53,104     115,374     590,387
  6     2005-06      224,988       171,445      123,353      55,272     138,384     713,442
  7     2006-07      333,737       175,909      133,487      71,804     132,299     847,236
  8     2007-08      387,861       196,034      181,396      92,137     150,663    1,008,091
  9     2008-09      443,548       203,715      248,029     117,455    148,403    1,161,150
  10    2009-10      525,977       247,246      269,102     124,784    160,273    1,327,382
  11    2010-11      602,451       308,648      324,709     137,353    184,853    1,558,014
  12    2011-12      738,424       430,399      374,500     122,464    216,906    1,882,693
  13    2012-13      743,409       429,831      412,697     120,964    239,459    1,946,360
  14    2013-14      877,255       495,330      501,052     138,084    242,811    2,254,532
  15    2014-15     1,033,720      553,028      534,762     162,248    306,220    2,589,978
  16    2015-16     1,217,474      678,313      624,058     188,055    404,572    3,112,472
  17    2016-17     1,344,226      702,565      626,400     197,911    496,772    3,367,874
  18    2017-18     1,536,583      824,219      661,087     213,493    608,373    3,843,755
  19    2018-19     1,445,508      810,357      648,856     238,186    685,575    3,828,482
  20    2019-20     1,523,064      876,333      720,471     250,470    626,378    3,997,408

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Annex-II
                     Tax Bases Data (Rs. Million)
               GDP (Gross
                        Value                                                      Dutiable
  S.No     FY         Addition)    GDP-non agri    LSM         Imports       Imports
    1     2000-01     3,923,244      2,977,943     410,879      627,000      386,597
    2     2001-02     4,146,167      3,177,876     424,089      634,630      404,641
    3     2002-03     4,534,218      3,474,902     481,374      714,372      436,316
    4     2003-04     5,250,527      4,085,776     621,899      897,825      629,159
    5     2004-05     6,122,568      4,808,334     814,657      1,223,079     869,815
    6     2005-06     7,715,777      5,701,305    1,003,062      1,711,158    1,052,837
    7     2006-07     8,735,766      6,549,859    1,149,573      1,851,136    1,010,603
    8     2007-08    10,355,255      7,961,728    1,363,068      2,512,072    1,283,696
    9     2008-09    12,542,265      9,543,644    1,427,213      2,723,570    1,337,629
   10    2009-10    14,248,547     12,787,274    1,644,117      2,910,975    1,333,709
   11    2010-11    17,647,553     13,054,833    2,144,831      3,455,286    1,521,329
   12    2011-12    19,361,511     14,608,436    2,362,410      4,009,093    1,600,186
   13    2012-13    21,496,680     16,161,704    2,519,037      4,349,880    1,652,823
   14    2013-14    24,028,897     18,052,680    2,824,463      4,634,974    1,778,444
   15     2014-15    26,089,690     19,553,568    2,853,222      4,719,399    2,703,371
   16     2015-16    27,402,295     20,652,329    2,801,169      4,721,978    3,467,318
   17     2016-17    29,977,559     22,659,094    3,044,603      5,583,637    4,067,138
   18     2017-18    32,383,021     24,471,242    3,331,363      6,749,678    4,662,323
   19     2018-19    35,783,281     27,413,644    3,722,943      7,499,468    5,054,709
   20     2019-20    38,878,480     29,409,085    3,712,779      7,057,323    4,455,140

Page 15

Annex-III                  Log Values

                    Tax collection                       Tax bases

                                                       GDP-
                                           GDP   non           Total    Dutiable
 S.No  FY      DT  STM  STD  FED  CD  TOTAL     (GVA)   agr  LSM  Imports  imports
   1  2000-01   11.7   11.4   11.1   10.8   11.1    12.9        15.2    14.9   12.9    13.3      12.9
   2  2001-02   11.9   11.4   11.2   10.8   10.8    12.9        15.2    15.0   13.0    13.4      12.9
   3  2002-03   11.9   11.6   11.4   10.7   11.1    13.0        15.3    15.1   13.1    13.5      13.0
   4  2003-04   12.0   11.7   11.4   10.7   11.4    13.2        15.5    15.2   13.3    13.7      13.4
   5  2004-05   12.1   11.9   11.4   10.9   11.7    13.3        15.6    15.4   13.6    14.0      13.7
   6  2005-06   12.3   12.1   11.7   10.9   11.8    13.5        15.9    15.6   13.8    14.4      13.9
   7  2006-07   12.7   12.1   11.8   11.2   11.8    13.6        16.0    15.7   14.0    14.4      13.8
   8  2007-08   12.9   12.2   12.1   11.4   11.9    13.8        16.2    15.9   14.1    14.7      14.1
   9  2008-09   13.0   12.2   12.4   11.7   11.9    14.0        16.3    16.1   14.2    14.8      14.1
  10  2009-10   13.2   12.4   12.5   11.7   12.0    14.1        16.5    16.4   14.3    14.9      14.1
  11  2010-11   13.3   12.6   12.7   11.8   12.1    14.3        16.7    16.4   14.6    15.1      14.2
  12  2011-12   13.5   13.0   12.8   11.7   12.3    14.4        16.8    16.5   14.7    15.2      14.3
  13  2012-13   13.5   13.0   12.9   11.7   12.4    14.5        16.9    16.6   14.7    15.3      14.3
  14  2013-14   13.7   13.1   13.1   11.8   12.4    14.6        17.0    16.7   14.9    15.3      14.4
  15  2014-15   13.8   13.2   13.2   12.0   12.6    14.8        17.1    16.8   14.9    15.4      14.8
  16  2015-16   14.0   13.4   13.3   12.1   12.9    15.0        17.1    16.8   14.8    15.4      15.1
  17  2016-17   14.1   13.5   13.3   12.2   13.1    15.0        17.2    16.9   14.9    15.5      15.2
  18  2017-18   14.2   13.6   13.4   12.3   13.3    15.2        17.3    17.0   15.0    15.7      15.4
  19  2018-19   14.2   13.6   13.4   12.4   13.4    15.2        17.4    17.1   15.1    15.8      15.4
  20  2019-20   14.2   13.7   13.5   12.4   13.3    15.2        17.5    17.2   15.1    15.8      15.3

              Buoyancy Estimates based on 20 years data

         DT   STM   STD    FED    CD     TOTAL

            1.13     0.92     1.11     0.77      0.90       1.04