Al Amin :
The revenue shortfall is widening further as the National Board of revenue (NBR) receipt Tk 85403.80 crore against the target of 112959.83 crore in the last five months (July-November) of the current fiscal year.
The board missed the target by Tk 27,556.03 crore blaming the ambitious revenue collection target and slowed business activities across the world resulted from the Covid-19 pandemic.
The collection growth is 1.18 per cent in the last five months, which was 6.19 per cent in same period of the previous year, according to provisional data of the NBR.
The NBR, However, has failed to bring pace in collecting revenue from the Value-Added Tax (VAT) sector as it is still in negative growth, whereas the other two wings (export-import duty and income tax) are showing positive trened.
The revenue collection has decreased sharply as the country’s business activities including exports-imports have been affected severely by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
NBR officials said that the revenue collection has turned into positive territory due to some initiatives including close monitoring and tax evasion preventing measures taken by the NBR.
They said exports-imports had decreased rapidly amid the pandemic but now are increasing day by day as the situation is getting improved and the revenue collection is increasing gradually.
NBR has receipt Tk 38261.87 crore from the Customs duty against the target of Tk 95652 crore with 6.48 per cent growth during this time.
Officials said the authorities of the Customs houses have taken different initiatives to prevent duty evasion. They have already increased duty prevention activities so that the dishonest importers with the help of C and F agents can not evade duty by giving false declaration.
“Revenue collecting is increasing as the situation is improving. We have taken some steps, including cancellation of license and fine importers, to prevent duty evasion. We are now getting visible results of it,” said Md Azizur Rahman, Commissioner of Benapole Customs House.
“Besides, we have also completed some measures for “Ease of Doing Business” and some measures are still under procedure,” he said. Meanwhile, the NBR collected Tk 42528.09 crore from Value Added Tax (VAT) sector against the target of Tk 128873 crore with 5.21 per cent negative growth in the sector.
Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director of the Policy Research Institute (PRI), told The New Nation, “The big negative deficit in VAT collection shows that the domestic production activities are yet to be started fully in the country and the business activities are the surface.”
Besides, the main reason behind the VAT revenue shortfall is failure of the NBR to make the VAT system automated fully, he added.
He also apprehended that the yearly revenue might cross Tk 90, 000 crore this fiscal year.
The revenue collection from income tax sector was Tk 32169.87 crore against the target of Tk 105475 crore with 4.22 per cent growth.
Last year, the revenue collection growth in export-import duty was negative 0.07 per cent, in VAT 6.28 per cent and in income tax 13.52 per cent
