Staff Reporter :Finance Minister AMA Muhith said in a Press briefing on Friday, the revenue collection target of the proposed budget for fiscal 2015-2016 is high, but achievable.Expressing his high hope in revenue achieving the target, he said, “We have already enhanced the capacity of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) by doubling its manpower. The move was taken to boost the revenue collection,” he added.Muhith presented his government’s new budget on Thursday in the Parliament, proposing the NBR’s revenue collection target at Tk 176,370 crore for fiscal 2015-16. “NBR has been prepared to take the challenge towards achieving the proposed target,” he said this responding to questions from reporters at a post-budget press conference in city. He also said that the target has been set to break the 7.0 per cent growth barrier. “When I took charge of Finance Minister in 2009 the number of individual tax-payers was only 7.0 lakh. Now it is 11 lakh which is increasing every year,” he said. Muhith also admitted that the pace of raising the number is, however, slow. “We have already conducted a survey to enhance the number further. We want to give a big push in this regard to expand the tax net,” he noted. Taking floor at the press conference, NBR Chairman Md. Nojibur Rahman, said, “We have capacity to collect Tk 200,000 crore revenue provided we have enhanced manpower, good governance and digitalization in the Board.” He said: We are running a new NBR with the theme of ‘always possible’. Nojibur Rahman also said that NBR has already chalked out a plan to achieve the next fiscal’s revenue collection target.Responding to a question, the Finance Minister said, he did not touch the issue of whitening black money provision in the budget speech as it remains well-defined in the existing Income Tax Law. “Those who want to legalize his/her undisclosed income they can do this under the existing law,” he added. Muhith also said that he always loves to present an ambitious budget and he made no mistake this time also. “All of my budgets were ambitious and prepared for the welfare of the people and the country,” he added.Responding to another question, Muhith said, there will be no problem in deficit financing as it has been projected within 5.0 per cent of the GDP.The deficit budget is nothing new in our country. Once the budget deficit was 45 per cent of the GDP but it now stands at only 5.0 per cent of GDP.About the proposal to enhance duty and VAT on SIM cards and talk time, the Finance Minister said such steps have been taken considering the financial strength of the companies. Planning Minister AHM Mostafa Kamal, Agriculture Minister Motia Chowdhury, Information Minister Hasanul Haq Inu, Bangladesh Bank Governor Dr Atiur Rahman, among others, spoke at the press conference.
