Al Amin :
The revenue collection from the retail and wholesale sector has increased significantly despite economic slowdown caused by the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
In the last fiscal year (2020-21), the revenue board earned Tk 3919.72 crore from retail and wholesale sector with 80.02 percent year-on-year growth.
The board collected Tk 2170.40 crore revenues in the previous year (2019-20), according to a data of the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
The board fetched Tk 2888.05 crore in 2018-19 fiscal year, when the country’s business was in normal.
NBR officials said cancellation of package VAT, strong monitoring, hard work by the field level officials, increasing tax net and return submissions have contributed to increase the revenue collection in the sector.
Besides, VAT evasion preventive measures have contributed to enhance revenue collection in the sector tremendously, they said.
Md Anwar Hossain, Director General of the Research and Statistics wing of the NBR, told The New Nation, “Value-Added Tax (VAT) preventive measures, cancellation of package VAT and strong monitoring by the high officials were the main reasons behind the revenue growth.” He also said NBR has taken various initiatives in the last one year to prevent VAT evasion in different sectors to meet the revenue target amid the pandemic time.
“Besides, installation of Electronic Fiscal Devices (EFDs) and fixation of VAT on different business entities and strong motivation have contributed to increase revenue collection in the sector,” Anwar added.
S M Humayun Kabir, Commissioner of the Customs, Excise and VAT Commissionerate, Dhaka (South), said, “We have conducted survey and VAT registration drives massively in the last one year, which contributed to increase revenue collection in the sector.”
Besides, fixation of fair price by officials has also played an important role in soaring VAT collection from the sector, he added.
“Constant monitoring, hard work by the field level officials, increasing tax net and return submissions have contributed to increase the revenue collection in the sector,” said Mohammad Belal Hossain Chowdhury, Commissioner of Customs, Excise and VAT Commissionerate, Cumilla.
“The revenue collection will be increased more in the sector, if NBR increases its manpower,” he added.
Meanwhile, according to survey conducted by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) recently, showed that only 15-20 per cent of the due VAT is being collected from the retail and wholesale sector while the rest is dodged or evaded.
Commissioner Belal Hossain, however, said that the survey report is not correct, as all the VAT registered business entities have no taxable income.
