NBR revenue rises 16.24% in October

The NBR revenue collection in October this fiscal has spiked by 16.24 per cent over the corresponding period of the previous year.

Despite the rise, the revenue target, however, is yet to be achieved.

The revenue board has managed to collect Tk 21,085 crore in the month, with a shortfall of Tk 2,325 crore.

In the meantime, the country’s revenue collection in the first four months of the current fiscal (July-October) has seen 16.47 growth to Tk 79,353 crore over the same period a year ago.

The increased collection of income tax, import duty and Value Added Tax (VAT) pushed the overall revenue collection up for the period.

According to the provisional revenue data of the NBR, the last four month’s collection faced a Tk 8,753 crore shortfall against the target of Tk 88,106 crore as the board achieved 90.07 per cent of its target.

The average tax revenue collection saw 11.36 per cent rise during the last five years.

The data shows that Tk 5,720 crore was collected as income tax in October, up by 18.68 per cent year-on-year from Tk 4,820 crore in the previous year. But the target was Tk 5,968 crore.

The revenue authority managed to collect 95.84 per cent of income tax collection target, highest among its other wings.

The VAT collection grew by 10.09 per cent to Tk 8,270 crore against the target of Tk 8,960 crore in October.

The NBR also realised 92.31 per cent of its VAT collection target. However, the VAT wing witnessed a shortfall of Tk 689 crore.

In October, the customs wing of the NBR realised Tk 7,094 crore, posting 22.19 per cent growth, the highest among its other peers.

However, the target was Tk 8,483 crore, which also shows a decline by Tk 1,388 crore, but the wing managed to achieve 83.63 per cent of its targeted revenue.

NBR Member (tax policy) Md Alamgir Hossain told The Business Post, “Although there is a shortfall in achieving the target, the revenue collection has increased in October.’’

He hoped that the overall revenue collection will increase further in months to come.

In the July-October period, the NBR bagged Tk 23,669 crore as income tax till October this fiscal, up by 14.12 per cent over the corresponding period a year ago. The target, however, was Tk 25,896 crore.

The customs wing of the NBR collected an aggregate of Tk 26,404 crore till October this fiscal, with 21.31 per cent year-on-year growth. However, the target was Tk 30,210 crore, which also showed a shortfall of Tk 3,806 crore.

Though the VAT collection rose by 14.26 per cent till last month of the current fiscal with a collection of Tk 29,279 crore against the target of Tk 32,000 crore, the NBR realised 91.50 per cent of its target.

Economist Ahsan H Mansur, executive director of the Policy Research Institute, told The Business Post that after the last lockdown, the economy has strongly rebounded, thus being the reason for growth.

“However, the NBR can’t achieve the target as it goes by the traditional way. To achieve the target, the revenue authority has to go through a fundamental change without which there will not be a sustained increase in revenue collection,” he concluded.

The government has set a Tk 3,30,000-crore tax revenue collection target in the current fiscal year against the actual collection of Tk 2,61,000 crore in the last fiscal.