As of October 24, 2026, 116 days have elapsed since the financial year ended on June 30. The official FBR and Revenue Division yearbook indexes checked for this article still list 2024–25 as their latest editions. No 2025–26 edition appears in those listings. This is a dated finding about public availability, not proof that no report exists somewhere inside government. That distinction, however, offers little comfort to citizens entitled to examine the institution that taxes them.[1]
FBR’s Tax Expenditure Report 2026 supplies an important part of the record. Its cover identifies fiscal year 2024–25 as the underlying period. It estimates federal tax expenditure at Rs2,352.81 billion, against Rs2,434.73 billion in the preceding report, and expressly attributes the reduction to methodological refinement. The report provides data beyond June 2024, but its publication does not settle the questions of timeliness, comparability and accountability.[2]
Fifteen months and twenty-four days have elapsed since the end of that reference period. The latest identified detailed tax-expenditure report looks back to 2024–25, while the public needs a provisional account of 2025–26 and a clear timetable for its completion. Publication year, reference year and date of release must be displayed together.
Estimation takes time. Returns, customs transactions and sales-tax records do not all become final on the same day. That is a reason to publish provisional estimates with revision dates. It is not a convincing reason to leave users guessing which vintage of data supports a current claim. An authority seeking greater access to citizens’ digital records should explain the practical obstacles preventing timely publication of its own aggregate statistics.
Both FY 2024 and FY2025 yearbooks remain publicly available. Beyond the publication gap, however, lies a separate question of statutory reporting and parliamentary scrutiny. Section 12 of the Federal Board of Revenue Act, 2007 requires an annual activities report to be presented to the Prime Minister and laid before both Houses of Parliament. Section 11(4) separately requires an annual financial report to the Federal Government. FBR should identify the documents that discharge these duties and publish their submission and tabling dates.[3]
A publication carrying the words “year book” does not, by its title alone, establish that Parliament received the statutory report. Equally, an unsuccessful website search cannot establish that Parliament did not receive it. The answer lies in records held by FBR and the parliamentary secretariats. Release them. The provisions cited do not themselves establish a hundred-day deadline; the demand for an early, dependable reporting calendar is an accountability standard, not an invented statutory limitation.
This distinction matters because institutional credibility rests on verifiable conduct. A citizen should be able to establish what was reported, when, to whom and under which legal obligation without navigating a bureaucratic maze. If the annual report has ceased to appear in an accessible, identifiable series, the leadership must explain whether it was renamed, merged, delayed or withheld. Administrative convenience cannot extinguish a statutory duty.
Tax expenditure requires the same clarity. Section 8 of the Public Finance Management Act, 2019 requires the annual Finance Bill placed before the National Assembly to include a statement of estimated federal tax expenditure.
Parliament is entitled to scrutinise concessions alongside the taxes imposed on everybody else. A budget statement and a detailed retrospective study serve related but different purposes; neither should be presented as answering every question the other leaves open.[4]
The central question is who benefits from a concession, at what public cost and with what result. Some concessions protect essential consumption, avoid double taxation or serve legitimate public purposes. Others may reward influence or survive long after their justification has expired. Abolishing everything would be as intellectually careless as defending everything. Every significant preference needs an identifiable legal basis, an estimate, an intended beneficiary, a review date and evidence of its effect.
Methodology can alter the apparent scale of privilege without changing the law that grants it. A smaller reported total cannot automatically be celebrated as revenue recovered. Parliament needs a reconciliation showing how much movement arises from changed classifications, economic conditions, improved data and actual withdrawal of concessions.
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Where the benchmark changes, comparable earlier figures should be restated or the break in the series made unmistakable. Otherwise, a policy debate can turn on numbers measuring different things.
Petroleum taxation illustrates the problem. The FY 2025 report explicitly removes Rs1,795.765 billion of notional sales tax on petroleum products from its gross calculation for FY2023–24, arguing that petroleum development levy is already charged. The adjustment is disclosed; describing it as an entirely hidden omission would be inaccurate. The substantive dispute is whether that treatment adequately explains the fiscal and federal consequences of replacing one instrument with another.[5]
A consumer’s combined burden, the legal classification of a receipt and its treatment in federal–provincial distribution are different questions. Combining them into a single net figure can obscure policy choices. Publish the alternative calculations and distributional effects. Let Parliament decide whether the arrangement serves the federation. Researchers should not have to reverse-engineer the budget to discover what a change of classification has done.
The other side of this problem is refunds. A tax authority can announce substantial payments and still owe substantial sums. Refunds paid during a year are a flow; unpaid refunds at a particular date are a stock. Claims lodged, amounts accepted as payable, disputed claims and credits not yet claimed are also distinct. A credible account must show each category rather than selecting whichever number creates the most favourable impression.
There is some official information. The International Monetary Fund’s December 2025 programme report identifies end-June 2025 income-tax refund arrears of Rs234.8 billion and sales-tax refund arrears of Rs155.5 billion, a combined Rs390.3 billion. Its definition depends on documentation, settlement status and the prescribed ageing period. This is a programme-defined arrears measure, not a comprehensive estimate of every refundable balance in the economy.[6]
That qualification strengthens the demand for disclosure. FBR should reconcile the programme measure with all claims lodged, sanctioned amounts awaiting payment, cases under verification or litigation and credits awaiting an application.
It should explain which categories fall outside the published arrears figure. An official aggregate should lead the reader towards a complete account, not become a convenient answer to questions it was never designed to resolve.
The problem is current. On October 17, 2026 Business Recorder reported the Karachi Tax Bar Association’s complaint that compliant taxpayers had little visibility over when excess taxes would be returned. According to the association, the chairman directed officials to formulate a time-bound refund procedure. The report also recorded concerns about due process in advance-tax recovery. The direction deserves acknowledgement. Its value will depend on publication, implementation and measurable reductions in delay.[7]
Business Recorder had also reported on July 10, 2026 that more than Rs6 billion in refunds had been blocked over non-compliance with digital monitoring requirements, citing industry sources.
The same report recorded nearly Rs600 billion in refunds paid during FY2025–26. Both facts belong in the discussion. Neither establishes the complete outstanding liability, and the reported enforcement action should not be conflated with every delayed refund.[8]
The economic cost is nevertheless plain. A business awaiting money lawfully due may have to borrow to pay workers, suppliers and utilities. The state’s administrative delay becomes the firm’s financing cost. Where a refund is disputed, issue a reasoned decision that can be challenged. Where it is accepted as payable, disclose the reason for non-payment and the date of payment. A taxpayer should not need influence, repeated visits or a public campaign to recover an admitted entitlement.
Collections must consequently be presented with the liabilities and timing effects that qualify them. Cash receipts are real, but cash in the treasury is not a complete measure of sustainable revenue performance. Delaying refunds can improve a cash result while imposing a corresponding burden elsewhere.
The correct response is a transparent reconciliation, not mechanically subtracting the entire historical refund stock from one year’s receipts. That would confuse stocks and flows and could double-count adjustments.
Advance payments require equal care. Lawful advance tax is a normal part of income-tax administration. The abuse under scrutiny is pressure to pay beyond the applicable obligation, or the presentation of unusually accelerated receipts as a permanent improvement in collection capacity. Distinguishing these situations requires payment dates, statutory bases, the tax years credited and the subsequent adjustments. A headline total cannot perform that task.
On January 1, 2026, The News reported that roughly Rs305 billion had been deposited by the corporate sector on the last day of December 2025. It also reported FBR’s denial of unusual reliance on advances and its comparison with Rs278 billion deposited in the closing days of the previous fiscal year. Concentrated receipts merit examination; they do not, by themselves, prove unlawful extraction. FBR’s explanation must be tested against a year-wise reconciliation.[9]
The specific allegation that money taken during 2026 against 2027 obligations will ultimately be adjusted against tax year 2028 requires documentary proof. The public sources examined for this article do not establish that chain.
FBR should disclose whether such arrangements exist, their amounts and authority, and the years in which credit will be allowed. Fiscal years, calendar years and normal or special tax years cannot be used interchangeably. An allegation this serious must be established through records, not repetition.
If the practice is occurring, the consequences extend beyond one misleading announcement. Bringing future receipts forward can leave later budgets with a hole, encouraging another round of premature collection. Rewarding officials for the immediate cash result creates an incentive to perpetuate the cycle. Leadership should therefore be judged on the durability and legality of collections, the settlement of liabilities and the accuracy of published information, rather than on the last day’s deposit alone.
These demands are rooted in Article 19A of the Constitution, which protects access to information on matters of public importance subject to lawful regulation and reasonable restrictions. The Pakistan Information Commission describes the Right of Access to Information Act, 2017 as an instrument for public accountability and participation. Aggregate fiscal performance falls squarely within the public interest that makes the right meaningful.[10]
Taxpayer confidentiality remains important. In February 2026, reporting recorded the Islamabad High Court’s suspension of Pakistan Information Commission orders concerning taxpayer information, with notices issued in FBR’s petitions. The disputed requests included identifiable recovery and assessment material. That procedural development must be acknowledged; it should not be inflated into a final ruling that every statistic held by FBR is secret.[11]
An anonymized refund-ageing schedule, a publication calendar, a methodology note and the dates on which statutory reports were tabled do not ordinarily require exposing a taxpayer’s return. Where disclosure risks identification, aggregate or redact the sensitive material and explain the precise restriction. Invoking confidentiality without addressing these alternatives turns a legitimate protection into a shield against institutional examination.
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The complaints are not new. In “Non-Disclosures And The FBR’s Underperformance”, published on July 6, 2024, this writer called for disclosure of unpaid refunds and undue advances, independent scrutiny of collection claims and meaningful taxpayer-category data.
A June 2026 detailed series on tax expenditure returned to the scrutiny of concessions. Repetition has become necessary because the public still lacks a dependable, integrated way to test the claims made in its name.[12]
The responsibility travels upward. The Chairman controls administrative priorities and the Finance Minister is answerable for the fiscal narrative presented to the country. Parliamentary committees must insist on the underlying reconciliations before endorsing claims of achievement. If senior officials tolerate selective disclosure, the organisation learns that managing appearances matters more than correcting the record. “The rot starts at the top” is meaningful here as a statement about responsibility and incentives, not an accusation that every employee is dishonest.
The same test applies to the executive and judiciary. An institution cannot build confidence merely by asserting its authority. Citizens need predictable decisions, accessible records and credible explanations of delay. A delayed judgment, an unanswered administrative claim and an unpaid admitted refund are not legally identical; each, however, can make an enforceable right practically inaccessible. Public confidence erodes when officeholders demand obedience while treating their own obligations as optional.
A practical remedy can begin immediately. FBR should place a dated disclosure register on its website identifying each required report, its responsible office, reference period, publication date and parliamentary submission status. For FY2025–26 it should release a provisional performance account, clearly label unsettled figures and announce the finalisation date. Delays should produce a written explanation from the responsible senior most officer. These are proposed administrative standards that can be adopted without waiting for another grand restructuring exercise.
Monthly reporting should reconcile gross receipts, refunds actually paid and net cash collection, alongside opening and closing refund claims and their ageing. A separate schedule should identify advances by the tax year to which they relate, including exceptional prepayments and later credits. Tax-expenditure publications should carry comparable series and explain methodological changes. The Auditor-General should examine material differences and the parliamentary finance committees should hold public hearings on the findings, subject to lawful confidentiality safeguards.
No country progresses by making its institutions less answerable than its citizens. Credibility is earned through records that withstand examination; punctuality makes those records useful before the next budget is imposed. FBR’s leadership must stop treating disclosure as a concession to critics. The authority that audits the nation must make its own performance auditable. Until it does, credibility and punctuality will remain the Waterloo of Pakistan’s apex revenue authority
References and endnotes
- FBR, CBR/FBR Year Books & FBR Revenue Division Year Books, official indexes checked on 24 October 2026. Both listed FY2024–25 as the latest edition. The 116-day interval is calculated from 30 June 2026; absence from these indexes does not establish non-existence elsewhere.
- FBR, Tax Expenditure Report 2026, cover and Chairman’s foreword, underlying FY2024–25. The report identifies a changed benchmark methodology. Report 2025 covers FY2023–24. These are report titles, not interchangeable labels for tax years.
- Federal Board of Revenue Act, 2007, sections 11(4) and 12, official consolidated text hosted by FBR. Section 12 concerns presentation to the Prime Minister and laying before both Houses. No claim of a statutory hundred-day deadline or verified abolition of reporting is made.
- Public Finance Management Act, 2019, section 8, official gazetted text. This provision concerns the statement accompanying the annual Finance Bill; it should not be confused with a separately assumed deadline for a retrospective report.
- FBR, Tax Expenditure Report 2025, section 4.2, printed page 23. The petroleum adjustment appears explicitly in the report. The article challenges its analytical implications rather than alleging the adjustment was undisclosed.
- IMF, Pakistan Second Review under the Extended Arrangement, Country Report 25/332, December 2025, Technical Memorandum of Understanding, tax-refund-arrears definition and end-June 2025 baselines. Rs234.8bn plus Rs155.5bn equals Rs390.3bn. These figures do not establish the total of all refundable credits or the October 2026 stock.
- Recorder Report, “Income tax refunds: FBR chief orders formulation of time-bound procedure”, Business Recorder, 17 October 2026. The account attributes the meeting details and chairman’s direction to the Karachi Tax Bar Association; a direction to draft a procedure is not evidence that it has already been implemented.
- Sohail Sarfraz, “FBR blocks refunds of over Rs6bn of non-compliant taxpayers”, Business Recorder, 10 July 2026. Reported enforcement action and refund-payment totals are attributed to the newspaper, not presented as an independently audited national reconciliation.
- Mehtab Haider, “FBR faces Rs336bn revenue shortfall in first half of current fiscal”, The News, 1 January 2026. The report includes FBR’s denial of unusual advance payments. No documentary confirmation of the specific 2026–2027–2028 adjustment allegation was located for this article.
- Pakistan Information Commission, Message of the Chief Information Commissioner, official explanation of Article 19A and the Right of Access to Information Act, 2017. The right is subject to lawful restrictions; aggregate disclosure should protect against identification of individual taxpayers.
- Terence J Sigamony, “Taxpayers’ data: IHC suspends PIC’s orders on disclosure”, Business Recorder, 11 February 2026; also APP, 10 February 2026. These accounts report suspension of the challenged orders and issuance of notices. No final determination or later procedural outcome is asserted here.
- Ikramul Haq, “Non-Disclosures And The FBR’s Underperformance”, The Friday Times, 6 July 2024; “Tax expenditure & myth of fiscal deficit—II: The hidden budget of the elite”, Minute Mirror, 7 June 2026. Cited for the continuity of the author’s disclosure demands, not as independent proof of current liabilities or misconduct.