Al Amin :
Despite the uneasiness in various indicators of the country’s economy, the government is somewhat comfortable in collecting revenue.
The revenue board witnessed 15.21 percent year-on-year growth totaling Tk 227,641.24 crore in last ten months of the current fiscal year, which was Tk 197,583.52 crore during the same period of the previous fiscal.
The growth in revenue collection is mainly due to the rise in prices of imported goods, instead of administrative credit of the National Board of Revenue (NBR), economists said.
The number of credit bonds or LCs for importing goods is increasing unusually. In the first nine months of the FY 22, traders have opened LCs worth $ 68.36 billion, up by 46.04 per cent than the same period of FY 21.
The value of the LCs stood at Tk 5.89 trillion which is close to the national budget of the current fiscal year.
The soaring prices of imported commodities have helped the NBR in achieving the healthy revenue growth, the economists opined, adding, “The importers and consumers are not comfortable with the price hike.”
“As the prices of imported goods has gone up, the collection of duty on it has gone up, which has fueled the overall revenue collection. The income is basically price driven,” Dr Zahid Hussain, former lead economist of the World Bank Dhaka office, told The New Nation on Monday.
The revenue collection growth was not an administrative achievement, he said.
He further said the revenue collection would have been better, if the NBR would take steps for administrative reforms, introducing automated tax collection system and widening tax net by reducing tax rate.
“The NBR will have to face hard times in days to come as the pressure on subsidies and government spending would be increased. To deal with this, it is necessary to increase the administrative efficiency of the NBR and increase the collection by preventing tax evasion,” he opined.
The NBR fetched Tk 73,060.26 crore from customs, Tk 84,895.21 crore from the Value-Added Tax (VAT) while Tk 69,685.77 crore came from the income tax and travel tax wing during the July-April period, according to the NBR data.
The revenue collection of the NBR is, however, lower than the 10-month target of Tk 260,031.75 crore. The data also showed that the NBR earned Tk 61,131.63 crore from customs, Tk 76,781.68 crore from VAT and Tk 59,670.21 from income tax during the corresponding period of last fiscal year.
Abdul Mannan Shikder, Member of the NBR, said positive changes have been evident into the mindset of the businessmen and individual taxpayers compared to the past as they are becoming compliant every now and then.
“Side by side, the field-level tax officials are strengthening their monitoring system. Considering all these things, there has been a positive growth in revenue collection,” he added.
The NBR has been giving due importance in preventing tax evasion in the customs system and the businessmen are now much more compliant since they have taken VAT registration through online and thus paying it, he mentioned.
On the other hand, it has been possible to bring the maximum number of people under the tax net in case of direct tax.
