The National Board of Revenue may miss the revenue collection target of Tk 1,12,259 crore set for the current 2012-2013 financial year mainly due to frequent strikes and overall
political unrest in the country, officials apprehended.
Every hartal is taking heavy toll on revenue collection as trade, business, import and export activities — the major sources of revenue earnings — remain almost closed during hartals, they said.
Chittagong Customs House calculated that the government lost a total of Tk 178.21 crore in revenues in 10 days of hartal in March.
The CCH made the calculation after the NBR in the first week of this month had asked its 19 field offices of customs and VAT to assess the loss caused due to hartals.
Dhaka Customs House lost Tk 1.48 crore, Jessore VAT commissionerate lost Tk 3.15 crore and Sylhet VAT commissionerate lost Tk 45 lakh to 10 days of hartal in the month, said an official.
He said they expected other offices would send their reports soon.
‘The NBR apprehends that it may not be able to achieve its revenue collection target due to repeated hartals and political instability in the country as it loses huge amount of revenue to a day’s general shutdown,’ a high NBR official told New Age on Wednesday.
The NBR continued to struggle in revenue collection as it fell short of target and the deficit has been increasing over the last few months due to slowdown in economic activities including negative growth, he said adding that deficit would be increased if political unrest continued.
According to official data, the NBR fell short of the target for the first eight months of the current fiscal year by Tk 3,155 crore.
The officials said the deficit had increased further by Tk 4,800 crore in July-March as the country experienced volatile situation including 10 days of hartal during March.
Value-added tax experienced the highest deficit amounting to around Tk 3,000 crore in July-March followed by customs duties, they said.
‘How traders and businessmen will pay us taxes if they cannot run their business,’ another NBR official said adding that if present trend continued, it might cause a big deficit at the end of the year.
VAT collection is falling as wholesale and retail business, shopping mall even small shops remain out of business and overall economic activities go dull while customs duties fall as export-import comes to a standstill during hartals, he said.
According to a study conducted by the Dhaka Chamber of Commerce of Industry, the government loses revenue to the tune of Tk 250 crore to a single day’s hartal.
NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain in a recent pre-budget discussion with the DCCI had said that present political unrest would not only affect the current year’s revenue collections but also would continue to put its adverse impact on the revenue collections in coming years.
Export-import activities have been facing serious disruption because of the current political instability, he said.
He, however, had expressed hope that the NBR would be able to achieve its target by the end of the year.
The NBR set a revenue collection target of Tk 40,400 crore from VAT with 17.24 per cent growth, Tk 35,600 crore from customs duties with 14 per cent growth and Tk 35,300 crore from income tax with 25 per cent growth for the current financial year.
-With New Age input
