The government's revenue collection increased by 15.70 percent to stand at Tk 1,771.36 billion in the first eight months of the current fiscal year.
In the same period of the previous fiscal, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) collected Tk 1,531.04 billion as revenue.
Experts said the revenue has increased due to rising prices of global commodities which apparently helped the government to collect more revenue.
According to the NBR's preliminary estimates, the highest growth rate of 23.18 percent at the import and export level from July to February was collected at around Tk 56,957.44 crore.
Compared to the last fiscal year, more than Tk 10,000 crore of duty has been collected from this.
In the same period of the last financial year, Tk 46,237.57 crore was collected.
On the other hand, NBR has collected Tk 66,870.72 crore as VAT, up 11.48 percent over the same period of the previous fiscal.
In the same period of the 2020-21 financial year, a total of Tk 59,986.64 crore was collected.
Despite the target of Tk 59,800 crore for income tax from July to February in this fiscal, the NBR collected Tk 53,308 crore.
Although the revenue collection has increased by 13.72 percent by the income tax, this wing faced a Tk 6,492 crore shortfall against its target.
However, the NBR was able to collect an income tax of around Tk 7,724 crore against the target of Tk 6,540 crore in February alone.
In the budget of the current 2021-22 fiscal year, the target of total revenue income has been set at Tk 3,89,000 crore.
The government has set a Tk 3.30-trillion target for the NBR for the current FY.
AB Mirza Azizul Islam, economist and former financial adviser to a caretaker government, said that the growth of tax rate is a big challenge considering the global situation including Corona epidemic.
In order to increase the revenue without imposing tax burden, the NBR and the government should first and foremost emphasize on stopping tax evasion.
“Increasing the tax coverage and forcing all TIN holders to file income tax returns. Then the revenue may increase,” he mentioned.
