NBR has to collect Tk 56,584cr more in 4 months
The National Board of Revenue in the first eight months of the current fiscal year collected only 54.73 per cent of the downsized revenue target set for the entire fiscal year as the growth in revenue collection remained slow, officials said. According to the latest data, the NBR collected Tk 68,415.97 crore in revenue in July-February of FY 2013-14 against a full-year target of Tk 1,25,000 crore.
The government had initially set a collection target of Tk 1,36,090 crore for the FY14 for the NBR but the target was later downsized.
In July-February of this fiscal year, revenue collection grew only by 8.66 per cent, much below the target of more than 15 per cent set for the whole year, NBR officials said.
The board had collected Tk 62,895.46 crore in revenue in the same period of the last fiscal year.
The NBR now will have to collect Tk 56,584 crore in the last four months of this fiscal year that would be very difficult for the taxmen, NBR officials said.
They said that the key reason for the slow growth in revenue collection in the period was dull economic activities particularly in export and import performance due to the political unrest in the last few months of the last year.
They said poor export and import resulted in negative growth in customs duties, particularly export and import duties.
They said that income tax collection also saw an unexpectedly slow growth — 14 per cent — in the period due to a negative growth (-9.01 per cent) in February.
Growth in income tax collection was around 20 per cent to 30 per cent in the last few months of the current fiscal year and in the last fiscal year.
Revenue earnings in February alone also grew only by 0.86 per cent compared with the same month of the last year which affected overall growth in the revenue collection in the period, they said.
Revenue officials said there was no sign of sudden uplift of economic activities which could help the taxmen to achieve the target by the end of the year.
According to the NBR data released on Thursday, in July-February of FY14, collection of customs duties grew negative by 0.86 per cent, value-added tax grew by 13.29 per cent while income tax grew by 14 per cent.
In July-February in the FY13, customs duties, VAT and income tax had increased by 6.20 per cent, 13.65 per cent and 30.85 per cent respectively, the data showed.
The NBR managed to collect Tk 20,863.22 crore in customs duties in the first eight months of the current fiscal year against Tk 20,934.72 crore collected in the same period in the last fiscal year.
VAT collection stood at Tk 26,192.65 crore and income tax collection at Tk 20,900.14 crore in the period, the data showed.
In July-February of the FY13, NBR had collected Tk 23,120.50 crore in VAT and Tk 18,333.18 crore in income tax.
NBR officials said that duties in export and import grew negative due to slow growth in export and negative growth in import in the period of this fiscal year.
In the period, import duties grew negative by 1.61 per cent while export duties grew negative by 22.32 per cent, the data showed.
The NBR also saw negative growth in collection of travel tax and taxes from other sources, it showed.
-With New Age input
