A steady growth has been maintained in revenue collection as the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has achieved a record 16.72 percent growth in the first three months of the fiscal year 2021-22 (July-September).
After successfully tackling the Covid-19 situation, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has accelerated revenue collection through close monitoring, automation move, easing of the tax payment procedures, legal reforms and transparency, said NBR sources.
Last July-August period, the growth was 14.55 percent, according to the NBR data.
In the first three months of the current financial year, about Tk 58,351crore has already been collected against the target of Tk 64,695 crore in the Income Tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) and Customs Departments.
Revenue collection has returned to normal due to intensive monitoring, automation and increasing tax coverage, said Director General of the NBR research and statistics wing Md Anwar Hossain.
“This is our temporary collection figure. Finally, the amount and growth of collection may increase further. Because we have many sectors, the calculation of which is not immediately available. If those figures are available, the amount of collection will increase further”, he expected.
Bouncing back of economic activities in every sector of the economy, including imports and exports, has had a positive impact on the NBR's revenue collection, he added.
According to the latest provisional figures from the NBR's statistics department, in the three months (July-September) of the 2021-22 fiscal year, Tk 17,949 crore was collected from income tax. On the other hand, the collection from VAT and customs sector is about 21 thousand 92 crore and about 19 thousand 309 crore respectively.
Earlier, in the first two months of the financial year (July-August), a total of Tk 34,548.98 crore was collected in three sectors, as per NBR data.
Of the total Q1 collections, customs revenue posted an impressive 21 per cent growth, the highest among the other wings, due to an increase in global commodity prices.
Import of revenue-generating products including higher prices of fuel oil and food contributed to the higher customs revenue growth in the first three months of the current FY.
According to Bangladesh Bank data, the value of imports as measured by the settlements of letters of credit (LCs) surged by 30.62 per cent to US$ 5.17 billion in August 2021 from $3.96 billion in the previous month.
The opening of import LCs also increased by more than 48 per cent to $6.29 billion in August from $4.25 billion a month ago.
Earlier, the NBR had ended the fiscal year 2020-21 with a revenue deficit of Tk 41,118.20 crore. In the budget of the current 2021-2022 financial year, the target of total revenue is TK 3 lakh 89 thousand crore. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has set a target of Tk 3 lakh 30 thousand crore.
According to the NBR, the highest target has been set at Tk 128,873 crore from value added tax or VAT, Tk 1,05,475 crore from income tax and travel tax and Tk 95,652 crore from import duty.
