The finance ministry has asked the National Board of Revenue to raise the target of revenue collection by Tk 8,000 crore for the current fiscal year, though the revenue board failed to achieve its target for the first five months of the year.
The NBR fell short by Tk 2,900 crore against its revenue collection target for July-November as it collected Tk 36,363 crore in the period.
‘The finance ministry has told us to revise revenue collection target by adding up Tk 8,000 crore for the fiscal year 2012-2013 to finance the development activities,’ NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain told reporters after attending a workshop on alternative dispute resolution on income tax at the Westin Hotel in the capital on Saturday.
The current Awami League-led government’s tenure will end by 2013 and this financial year which will end in June 2013 will be crucial because of the spending before the general elections.
The NBR and the International Finance Corporation jointly organised the workshop.
The revenue board has set a target of revenue collection of Tk 1,12,259 crore for the FY 2012-2013 which is 18.36 per cent higher than that of the last fiscal year.
In 2011-2012, the NBR collected Tk 94,581.03 crore against the revised target of Tk 92,370 crore while the original target for the period was Tk 91,870 crore.
Based on the revenue collection target and commitments of international lenders the government already adopted annual development and other non-development programmes for the year.
Ghulam Hussain, however, said that the revenue board had got yet no written instruction on raising revenue collection target.
Though the revenue board fell short of revenue collection target in the first five months of the fiscal year, it will be able to achieve the full-year target by intensifying its monitoring and strengthening efforts, he said.
The NBR is also going to find out new sectors as possible taxpayers, he added.
At a meeting with the NBR on Thursday, finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith instructed the officials to expedite revenue collection, widen the tax net and strengthen its efforts in this regard.
NBR officials said from now on the finance minister would attend the revenue review meeting with the NBR in every three months.
The officials said that they would face difficulty in collecting the increased revenue due mainly to moderate growth in duty at import level and negative growth in export duty and supplementary duty at local level.
The reason for a lower than expected duty collection from the sectors was a decreased growth in export and import in the period, they said.
NBR chairman emphasised on bringing the large taxpayers under the ADR system to settle disputes over income tax, customs duty and value-added tax and boosting revenue collection.
More than Tk 27,000 crore revenue in income tax, duty and VAT remained stuck due to a huge backlog of cases in different courts, he said adding that huge amount of money would add in the government exchequer if taxpayers settle their disputes through the ADR.
He expressed his dissatisfaction as no cases related to customs and VAT have yet been resolved through the ADR process while 16 cases involving Tk 87 crore related to income tax were settled through the process and the NBR earned Tk 30 crore after the settlement of the cases.
NBR members Bashir Uddin Ahmed and Jahangir Hossain, and Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry adviser Manjur Ahmed spoke, among others, at the programme which was presided over by NBR member Kalipad Halder.
Source : New Age
