Shortfall in revenue collection by the National Board of Revenue further increased to Tk 4,800 crore in the first nine months of the current fiscal year due mainly to political unrest over the last few months and overall economic slowdown in the country, officials said.
The NBR’s revenue collection deficit has been increasing for the last few months as political violence including frequent general strikes have hampered business activities across the country, they said.
In July-February, shortfall was Tk 3,155 crore.
In July-March, value-added tax and customs wings of the NBR faced a big shake in revenue collection.
Large Taxpayers Unit (VAT) of the NBR, responsible for VAT collection from big companies, alone fell short by Tk 3,612 crore in July-March that led the NBR with such a huge deficit, NBR data showed.
According to NBR provisional data, the revenue board collected Tk 72,118 crore in July-March against the target of Tk 76,918 crore in the period.
In July-March, revenue earnings from VAT, customs duties and tax from other sources fell short by Tk 2,973.94 crore, Tk 1,800 crore and Tk 300 crore respectively of its target while collection from income tax succeeded its target by Tk 274.44 crore.
Revenue collection in the period, however, grew by 14.13 per cent compared with the same time of the last year but the growth is slower compared with the growth target of 18.36 per cent set by the tax administration for the entire year.
The NBR officials expressed apprehension that it might not be able to achieve its revenue collection target as it would have to collect more than Tk 40,000 in the remaining three months of the fiscal year.
The deficit will increase further if the volatile political situation continues, they said.
VAT collection registered a big deficit as the NBR got less revenue from big VAT paying sectors such as cigarettes, cement, mobile and gas distribution, and slowdown in trade and commercial activities in the country in the period, they said.
The officials said revenue collection from customs duty fell short due to negative trends in import and slower growth in export in the period.
NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain, however, recently said that they would be able to achieve the target by the end of fiscal year like previous years as they had taken lots of measures including expansion of tax net, prevention of tax evasion, misuse of bonded warehouse facility and realising the dues from the government enterprises to boost the revenue collection.
In July-March, the NBR collected Tk 23,600 crore from customs duties against the target of Tk 25,446 crore, Tk 25,845.13 crore from VAT against the target of Tk 28,819.07 crore, Tk 22,208.44 crore from income tax against the target of Tk 21,934 crore for the period, the NBR data showed.
The revenue board has set a target to collect Tk 1,12,259 crore in the current fiscal 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 fiscal year.
-with New Age input
