Shortfall in revenue collection by the National Board of Revenue has reached to a new height of Tk 5,331 crore in the first five months of the current fiscal year due mainly to prolonged political unrest in the country, officials of the National Board of Revenue said.
They apprehended that the revenue collection trend till July-November showed that the collection in the current fiscal year might fall short of target by a record margin.
‘The gap between the revenue collection target and actual collection has already reached to an unprecedented level as the NBR managed to collect only Tk 41,593.68 crore in July-November against the target of Tk 46,924.68 crore for the period,’ a top NBR official told New Age on Tuesday.
The NBR never faced such situation in its history, he said.
The revenue board has nothing to do to improve the collection as business situation including export-import and trading was stagnant due to frequent blockade, hartal, vandalism and arson in the last few months that led to such a huge shortfall in revenue collection, he said.
The amount of deficit will further increase in the next few months if business environment does not improve and political normalcy does not return, he said.
NBR data released on Tuesday showed that the revenue board managed to collect only 88.59 per cent of its target in July-November as all the three wings of the revenue authorities—income tax, value-added tax and customs duties—fell short of meeting the target.
Though individual income taxpayers have been paying their taxes from September, the collection of income tax wing fell Tk 2,319.77 crore short of target in the period, the data showed.
Officials said although income tax collection grew by 28.49 per cent in the period, gloomy business situation and excessive target were the major causes for the shortfall.
In July-November, revenue earnings from customs duties, VAT and other taxes also fell short of Tk 1,022.72 crore, Tk 1,817.34 crore and Tk 171.17 crore respectively.
The NBR has already apprised the government that they would not be able to achieve the target in the current fiscal year and the deficit might reach up to Tk 13,000 crore by the end of the year.
Revenue earnings in the five months, however, grew by 13.85 per cent or Tk 5,079.78 crore compared with the same period of last year.
In July-November of last year, the NBR collected Tk 36,513.90 crore.
According to the data, the NBR collected Tk 13,281.02 crore in customs duties,
Tk 15,303.25 crore in VAT, Tk 17,762.23 crore in income tax and Tk 245.18 crore in other taxes.
The targets of collection were Tk 14,303.78 crore in customs duties, Tk 17,122.59 crore in VAT, Tk 15,082 crore in income tax and Tk 416.35 crore from other sources during the period.
In the period, collection of customs duties grew by 1.61 per cent, that of VAT by 15.28 per cent, that of income tax by 28.49 per cent and that from other sources grew by negative 4.56 per cent, the data showed.
The NBR set a revenue collection target of Tk 1,36,090 crore for the current fiscal year with the highest Tk 51,000 crore envisaged to be collected in VAT, Tk 48,300 crore in income tax, Tk 35,790 crore in customs duties and Tk 1,000 crore in other taxes.
-With New Age input
