Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The government plans to diversify its revenue sources to fetch more resources aiming to lessening reliance on foreign aid in funding development budget for the next fiscal.
“The government is committed to diversify and improve its revenue collection in order to reduce dependence on foreign loans and grants in funding development budget for FY 2016-17,” a senior official of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) told The New Nation on Sunday, asking not to be named.
To make the effort a success, he said, the government is setting up additional manpower to the NBR and upgrading the Board’s operations to an electronic system. At the same time, it is also working to block all leakages that were hitherto led to pilferages of revenues. The official further said that the issue was discussed on Sunday’s meeting of the government’s Fiscal Coordination Council where members of the Council asked the NBR and other revenue-yielding agencies to work jointly to find out untapped areas for revenue collection. The Council stressed the need for improving efficiency of the revenue officials and expanding the tax offices at upazila level to mobilize additional revenue that may help amplify the government’s coffer, according to the official. It also discussed about the new VAT laws which is going to be implemented from the next fiscal year. Members of the Council expressed the hope that the government’s revenue collection might be improved from the next fiscal year following implementation of new VAT laws. They also discussed a wide range of economic issues and formulation of budget for the next fiscal. Ministers and secretaries of the concerned ministries were present at the meeting held at the Finance Ministry.
The NBR official said the government is working hard for achieving self-sufficiency in funding development budget through mobilizing resources from local level. A higher revenue collection can also help fulfill its need to increase investment spending and improve quality of public services,” he added.
When asked, he declined to comment on the next fiscal’s revenue collection target saying that the NBR is still working on it. He, however, said that the total outlay of the next budget would be around Tk 340,600 crore with an allocation of Tk 110,000 crore for Annual Development Programme (ADP). The total outlay of the current budget (2015-16) is Tk 295,100 crore, 18.0 per cent higher over outlays of FY 2014-15, setting the revenue collection target at Tk 208,443 crore, 30.0 per cent higher over revenue target of FY 2014-15.
