Revenue earnings by the National Board of Revenue fell short of target by Tk 1,438 crore in the first five months of the current financial year 2014-15 mainly because of failure in collection in value-added tax, officials said. Though the customs and income tax wings of the NBR achieved its respective revenue collection target in July-November period of the FY15, VAT wing lagged behind the target, they said.
According to NBR data to be released next week, taxmen managed to collect Tk 47,765.63 crore in July-November against the target of Tk 49,204.03 crore set for the period.
Now, the revenue board will have to collect more than Tk 1 lakh crore or 68.10 per cent of total target in the remaining seven months of the FY15 which may be a difficult task for the taxmen, a high official of the NBR told New Age on Wednesday.
In July-November, the revenue board managed to collect only 31.90 per cent of total target set for the entire financial year at Tk 1,59,720 crore, he said.
In the period, VAT collection fell short of target by Tk 1,957.56 crore as VAT officials collected Tk 18,099.64 crore against the target of Tk 20,057.20 crore, the data showed.
Customs and income tax collection succeeded its target by Tk 535.09 crore and Tk 108.90 crore respectively.
The officials said the VAT wings failed to achieve its collection target mainly due to sluggish trend in domestic consumption, slower economic activities and disappointing investment scenario in the country.
‘Mobile operators paid less than expectation in the period while cigarette companies paid less compared with that of the same period of the last year that reflected on overall VAT collection,’ a high official said.
The revenue board has no technical capacity to verify the authenticity of revenue figures declared by the mobile operators to find out whether they show actual income or hide income to dodge VAT, he said.
Revenue earnings, however, grew by 13.92 per cent in the period compared with that the corresponding period of the last FY14 when taxmen collected Tk 41,890.78 crore.
In July-November of the FY15, customs duty grew by 11.34 per cent, VAT by 15.94 per cent and income tax by 13.64 per cent, according to the data.
-With New Age input
