The office of the Controller General of Accounts has formed a joint committee to find out the reasons behind mismatch between the revenue figures of the National Board of Revenue and CGA office, officials said. The CGA office, at a meeting with the NBR, Bangladesh Bank and office of the Comptroller and Auditor General on December 12, formed the committee after it found a difference of Tk 5,737 crore with the record of the NBR for the fiscal year 2012-13, they said.
According to NBR, it collected Tk 1,09,216 crore in the FY 2012-13 while the CGA said that they received only Tk 1,03,479 crore for the period that means that a total of Tk 5,737 crore were not deposited to the government exchequer in that year.
The NBR collects revenue from income tax, value-added tax, customs duties, excise duties and some other taxes while CGA office maintains the accounts of government earnings.
By this time, the revenue board has also asked its field offices for identifying the causes of such difference in accounts.
The committee consists of representatives from the revenue board, CGA office, Civil Audit Directorate and Bangladesh Bank.
The committee will scrutinise the documents of the Customs, Excise and VAT Commmissionerate (Dhaka-South) of NBR related to revenue collection and accounts maintained by the chief accounts officer for Internal Resources Division of CGA, an official involved with the process told New Age.
They will also reconcile the gaps and find a way to avoid such mismatch in future, he said, adding that the scrutiny would be conducted on a pilot basis and based on the outcome of the scrutiny it may extend to other offices.
Officials said that mismatch were found in almost every year between the calculation of the NBR and CGA because of lack of coordination between the two government offices, lack of automation and flaws in collection procedures of the revenue board and corruption of the revenue and bank officials.
They said that such difference was not acceptable and against the norms of financial discipline.
NBR officials said that taxpayers deposited their income tax, VAT and customs duties to the government exchequer through treasury challan through Sonali Bank.
On the other hand, income tax in big amounts is deposited by bank cheque to the deputy commissioner of taxes and he deposits it to the Bangladesh Bank by treasury challan.
Officials said that sometimes collected revenue was counted twice as revenue officials deposit the revenue in wrong code. Sometimes, the revenue from some sectors including services is deposited late though the NBR calculates in the month when the tax is generated.
A NBR official said that from July to January of last fiscal year, the gap was in favour of the NBR by Tk 568 crore.
By this time, the revenue board earned Tk 53,918 crore while CGA received Tk 54,486
crore that means additional revenue was deposited from earlier months, he said.
There are also some allegations against the NBR officials that they delay to deposit the revenue to the government exchequer and earn profit to keep it in their bank accounts in illegal nexus with bank officials.
-With New Age input
