In the first month of the current financial year, there has been a shortfall of about 3 thousand crore rupees in the collection of duties and taxes. In July last month, 17 thousand 760 crore rupees were collected in income tax, value added tax (Musak) or VAT and customs sector. The target for revenue collection in July was Tk 20 thousand 586 crore. The deficit is 2 thousand 826 crores. However, there has been an overall growth of 15 percent in the revenue collection in July.

This information was obtained as a provisional revenue collection report of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) for the month of July. In this regard, NBR chairman Abu Hena held a revenue review meeting with customs cadre officials on Thursday. Rahmatul Munim. The meeting was held at the head office of NBR at Segunbagicha.

According to meeting sources, the field level officials have been instructed to be more strict in revenue collection. Apart from this, taxes should be collected easily from taxpayers without harassing them. It has been urged to define monthly revenue collection targets and strategies.

It is known that in the current economic situation, special instructions have been given from the higher echelons of the government to increase the collection of duties and taxes in the domestic sector, especially the NBR. Last month also, NBR chairman held a meeting with all customs and tax officials regarding the revenue collection situation.

In the current financial year (2022-23), NBR has been given a huge target of Tk 3 lakh 70 thousand crore, which is Tk 40 thousand crore more than the outgoing financial year. In the outgoing financial year, NBR collected a total of 3 lakh 2 thousand crore rupees. To achieve the target, there should be about 23 percent growth in revenue collection in the current financial year.

This July, the revenue collection in the customs sector has increased significantly compared to July of the previous year. The growth in customs sector is about 38 percent. Basically, due to the increase in the price of goods in the international market, the duty collection at the import level has naturally increased. In the month of July this year, the tax collection was 6 thousand 766 crores, the target was 6 thousand 704 crores. The entire target of this sector has been achieved. More than 1800 crore rupees have been collected compared to July last year.

On the other hand, in the last month of July, the deficit in VAT collection is about one and a half thousand crore rupees. VAT of 6 thousand 766 crore rupees has been collected in July. The target of VAT collection in July was Tk 8 thousand 214 crore. There is a shortfall in income tax collection of Tk 935 crore. In the month of July, income tax and travel tax was collected 4 thousand 732 crores. At that time, the target of tax collection was 5 thousand 668 crores.

The Finance Ministry’s Medium Term Macroeconomic Policy Statement shows the five-year tax-GDP ratio for 2016-20 at an average of 9.90 percent. As previously it was 10.2 percent. This rate is at the bottom among SAARC countries, less than half of Nepal. Even war-torn Afghanistan has a better tax-GDP ratio than Bangladesh. But in emerging countries of the world and developing countries in Asia, this rate is more than double that of Bangladesh, i.e. 26.7 percent. Even the tax-GDP rate of sub-Saharan African countries is higher than Bangladesh ie 17.8 percent