FY18 revenue falls Tk 20,000cr short of downsized NBR target

A file photo shows containers are being sorted at Chittagong port. Revenue earnings by the National Board of Revenue in the just concluded financial year (2017-2018) fell Tk 20,000 crore short of the downsized target due mainly to slower economic activities against higher collection target. — New Age photo

Revenue earnings by the National Board of Revenue in the just concluded financial year (2017-2018) fell Tk 20,000 crore short of the downsized target due mainly to slower economic activities against higher collection target.
Taxmen managed to collect Tk 2.05 lakh crore in FY18 against the revised target of Tk 2.25 lakh crore, according to the provisional data of NBR.
Revenue shortfall stands at Tk 43,190 crore if the original target of Tk 2,48,190 crore is considered.
Officials of the revenue board said that the tax receipts would go up a little bit in the final calculation after compilation of the final data received from the field offices by the end of July.
In general, the revenue board is satisfied with the achievement as it achieved an impressive growth, they said.
Tax collection grew by around 20 per cent in the year compared with that of 10.38 per cent in the previous FY 2016-2017.
In FY17, NBR’s total collection stood at Tk 1.72 lakh crore although it had initially claimed that the collection was Tk 1.85 lakh crore with 18.96 per cent growth.
Average revenue collection growth in last five years is 14.28 per cent.
Officials said that though the economy grew by 7.65 per cent in last fiscal year, it was not enough to meet the ‘highly ambitious’ revenue collection target with around 35 per cent growth.
According to the provisional data, collection of both income tax and value-added tax grew around 22 per cent while customs duty rose only by 13 per cent in the year compared with that of the previous year.
VAT wing collected the highest amount of revenue worth Tk 77,800 crore followed by income tax wing Tk 66,200 crore and customs wing Tk 61,500 crore, the data showed.
Revenue collection by the VAT, income tax and customs wings was Tk 63,562 crore, Tk 53,812 crore and Tk 54,282 crore respectively in FY17.

Source: New Age.