UNB, Dhaka :The Unnayan Onneshan (UO), an independent multidisciplinary think tank, revealed that declining rate of growth in total revenue collection in recent periods may bar the achievement of the country’s development targets.The research organisation in its August issue of monthly Bangladesh Economic Update 2015 finds that the rate of growth in revenue mobilisation has been on the decline since FY 2011-12. Actual mobilisation of total revenue grew by 23.3 percent in FY 2011-12, whereas the rate of growth decline in the subsequent years and stood at 11.8 and 9.4 percent in FY 2012-13 and FY 2013-14 respectively.Of the total tax revenue, NBR tax revenue grew by 20.16 percent in FY 2011-12, 12.82 percent in FY 2012-13, and 7.83 percent in FY 2013-14 while Non-NBR tax revenue grew by 9.33 percent, 13.43 percent, and 11.84 percent respectively during the corresponding period.In addition, in view of the fact that Bangladesh lags far behind other developing countries in terms of the total general government revenue as percentage of gross domestic product (GDP),the research organisation finds that the average total revenue for the period from 2010 to 2014 as percentage of GDP was 35.7 percent in advanced economies, 24.9 percent in emerging and developing Asia, 21.8 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa, 19.8 percent in ASEAN-5, 19.4 percent in India, 18.9 percent in Nepal, 13.7 percent in Pakistan, and 13.4 percent in Sri Lanka, whereas in Bangladesh, the average total government revenue as percentage of GDP for the corresponding period was only 10.8 percent.In FY 2014-15, the target of revenue collection was set at Tk. 1829.5 billion which was later revised at Tk. 1633.7 billion. In the first nine months of FY 2014-15 (July’14 – March’15), the total collection of revenue stood at Tk. 1032.1 billion which is 56.4 percent and 63.2 percent of original and revised target respectively.Referring to the latest data from the National Board of Revenue (NBR), the UO shows that the total collection of NBR-Tax stood at Tk. 1180.42 billion until May’15 of FY 2014-15 against the original target of total NBR-Tax of Tk. 1497.2 billion set in the budget of FY 2014-15 and the revised target of Tk. 1350.28 billion.
