Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is not at comfortable position, despite a good revenue collection growth in the last three quarters of the current fiscal year (2021-22).
The revenue board collected Tk 2,04,008 crore with 14.45 per cent year-on-year growth in last nine months, which was 11.36 per cent in the corresponding period of last five years and 8.24 per cent in the aforesaid time of the last fiscal year.
Increase in commodity prices in the international market has led to achieve the revenue collection growth, economists and NBR officials said.
The Customs wing of the revenue board achieved the highest revenue collection growth 20.53 per cent and followed by Income Tax 14.09 per cent and Value-Added Tax (VAT) 9.94 per cent during the time.
According to the latest data of the NBR, the government agency collected Tk 22,667 crore per month. Yet, the board will have to collect around Tk 42,000 crore every month, which is quite impossible.
Around Tk 30,000 crore will remain deficit, if the revenue collection growth continues in the next three months.
The annual revenue collection target was Tk 3,30, 000 crore for the current fiscal year, which is likely to increase Tk 3,70,000 crore for the next fiscal year (2022-23).
Economists said the revenue collection from the customs wing should have been more as per the ratio of hike in import cost and volume.
According to the Bangladesh Bank data, imports increased by 43 per cent year-on-year in the first nine months of the current financial year.
Syed Aminul Karim, former member (TAX) of the NBR, said, “Earnings from the customs wing will increase further due to the world wide higher inflation as well as VAT collection for higher commodity price.”
But the NBR will have to ensure proper monitoring, he said.
“The rise in commodity prices in the world market has led to an increase in import duty, which has kept the revenue collection in a more comfortable position,” Dr Zahid Hussain, former lead economist of the World Bank Dhaka office, told The New Nation.
Despite the growth, the NBR is not at comfortable position as the revenue collection target for the current financial year will not be achieved, if collection increases at this pace.
Even, realizing the ambitious target, the NBR will have to face some challenges in days to come, Zahid Hussain said.
Continuation of the existing tax exemptions to keep the prices of the essential commodities stable, gaining ability to prevent duty evasion and proper digitization in revenue collection will be the major challenges for the NBR.
In the meantime, the NBR is going to set a comparatively ambitious revenue target for the next fiscal year 2022-23.
