Al Amin :
The growing import activities are boosting national income as the government achieved a 16.72 per cent growth in revenue collection in the first three months of fiscal 2021-22.
According to the statistics of the NBR, the revenue board earned Tk 58351.19 crore against the target of Tk 64695 crore with the deficit of Tk 6343.81 crore in the aforesaid time.
Import of capital machineries and raw materials for the manufacture of garments, the country’s prime export item, has increased substantially during the period and it has helped to attain the revenue growth, the officials of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) said.
Besides, normalisation of economic activities in the country, digitisation of the revenue system, strengthening of source tax collection and strong monitoring by revenue board have also played role to achieve the target, they added.
The revenue collection was quite low due to the pandemic at the same time of the last year.
Abdul Majid, former chairman of the NBR, said that the economy had regained much of its momentum after the first blow of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
“Since the beginning of this fiscal year, import-export has increased, local production and supply chain have also gained momentum. As a result, revenue collection has also increased,” he said. The revenue collection from the customs wing of the board, based on export-import, has secured the top position.
As per the provisional data, the Customs sector witnessed a 21 per cent growth till September and posted Tk19,309 crore against the target of Tk21,727 crore during the first three months of the current fiscal year.
Customs officials said, a lot of products from previous orders have entered the country in the past few months. Imports of cement clinker, steel materials, and machinery have increased through the Chattogram port.
Like customs, the NBR has had more success in the Value-Added Tax (VAT) sector. Most of the successes have come from the Large Taxpayer Unit (VAT) set up to collect VAT from large companies.
The revenue collection in the sector stood at Tk21,092 crore against the target of Tk23,040 crore during the time with 16.45 per cent growth
NBR officials said that this success is mainly due to the business growth of large companies and the strengthening of their own monitoring system.
The NBR collected 80 percent of the tax from the source of the individual taxpayers and businesses. In the first quarter, the income tax growth was 12.74 per cent.
Abdul Majid believes that the highest growth should have been in the income tax sector at the beginning of the financial year.
He said, the part of tax is deducted at the source. It does not require NBR monitoring. Collection in this sector is somewhat easier as tax is deducted directly from taxpayers’ bank accounts.
