Al Amin :
The shortfall in tax revenue has widened to a whopping Tk 44,675.18 crore in just eight months of this fiscal year due to sluggish in economic activities caused by Covid-19 pandemic.
From July-February of the fiscal year 2020-21, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) provisionally collected Tk 1,51,472.29 crore with 4.05 per cent growth and fell short of its eight-month target by Tk 44,675.18 crore, according to the NBR data.
The country’s revenue board was supposed to collect 196147.47 crore from July through February of this fiscal year.
Economists, however, blamed the weakness of the NBR revenue administration, non-implementation of the VAT law and Covid-induced economic slum for the big shortfall in revenue collection.
During July-February of this fiscal, NBR collected Tk 46,177.67 crore from the customs wing against the target of Tk 62394.55 crore with 7.72 per cent growth. The deficit is Tk 16216 crore.
NBR collected Tk 58314.76 crore from the Value-added tax (VAT), the biggest source of revenue for the state coffer, against the target of Tk 77,323.80 crore with 0.39 per cent growth. Gap the between collection and target was Tk 19,009.04 crore.
Receipt from income tax was Tk 46,979.86 crore against the target of Tk 56,429.12 crore with 5.28 per cent growth. The deficit in the sector stood at Tk 9,449.26 crore during the time.
NBR takes various steps to increase tax net every year but yet to be succeeded, even more than half of the total Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) holders did not filed returns this year.
On an average, one per cent of the country’s population submits of their returns every year, whereas in India 4 per cent, in Nepal 6 per cent.
Like the previous year, the NBR planned to bring one crore people, who have taxable income, under the tax net but yet to be completed blaming the ongoing pandemic.
According to the latest data, only 250,54,043 out of 610,7,502 TIN holders submitted their returns so far. But the return submission is mandatory for all TIN holders who have taxable income.
According to a study of the Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD) that around 67 per cent of the country’s population does not pay taxes even though they have a taxable income.
Economists have suggested increasing the tax net without increasing the tax rate and identifying people, who have taxable income.
Dr Zahid Hussain, former leader economist of Dhaka office of the World Bank, told
The New Nation, “NBR takes various plans every year but fails to implement. The revenue board is still running through manual system, despite it was supposed to be automated.”
“Besides, there are many weaknesses in the revenue administration,” he added.
“On the other hand, there are new VAT law in the country but the pace of implantation is very low. As a result, the NBR is not getting expected result from the VAT law,” he added.
Officials said NBR is giving priority on installment of Electronic Fiscal Device (EFD) machines. Two thousand EFD machines have already been installed across the country and the number will be ten thousand by June this year.
“Besides, maximum efforts are being given to increase pace of the implementation of the VAT law,” said the NBR official.
