Deficit in tax collection by National Board of Revenue widened to Tk 16,799 crore in the first four months (July-October) of the current fiscal year of 2018-2019.
The shortfall was Tk 11,430 crore in the first three months (July-September) of the year and increased by Tk 5,369 crore in October.
According to the NBR data released on Tuesday, taxmen managed to collect Tk 62,129 crore in July-October against Tk 78,928 crore target set for the period.
The overall revenue collection grew only by 6.28 per cent in the four months, the data showed.
In July-October of last fiscal year (2017-2018), NBR had collected Tk 58,456 crore in taxes with 17.34 per cent growth over the same period of the previous year.
Officials of NBR attributed the rising deficit in revenue generation to slower economic activities, overestimated target set for the period and large-scale tax exemptions offered to various economic sectors.
They also said that NBR had lacked extra efforts to boost the collection.
Revenue mobilisation, however, also remained a little bit slower in the first half of the fiscal year, they added.
According to the data, all the three wings — income tax, value-added tax and customs duty — fell short of target by 18.55 per cent, 23.91 per cent and 20.28 per cent respectively in the period.
Deficit in VAT collection stood at the highest — Tk 7,639 crore — followed by customs duty by Tk 5,248 crore and income tax by Tk 3,912 crore.
Income tax, VAT and customs duty collection grew by 9.52 per cent, 2.11 per cent and 8.85 per cent respectively in the period compared with that in the same period of last fiscal year.
In July-October, income tax officials collected Tk 17,182.54 crore against the target of Tk 21,094.61 crore.
VAT and customs duty collection stood at Tk 24,315 crore and Tk 20,632 crore respectively in the period.
The targets of VAT and customs duty collection were Tk 31,955 crore and Tk 25,879 crore respectively for July-October.
NBR officials said that the overall economic activities including consumption remained slow as many investors were following a ‘wait-and-see’ policy before making new investments or expansion ahead of the national election scheduled for December 30.
The government has also set a highly ambitious collection target of Tk 2,96,201 crore with around 44 per cent growth, they said, adding that such a high growth target was completely impossible as the country never achieved such a high growth.
Revenue collection on an average grew by 13.64 per cent in last five years, they said.
Till now, the government has offered tax exemption worth more than Tk 13,000 crore in VAT, income tax and customs duty to various economic sectors, which is also responsible for the wide gap in revenue collection, they said.
A senior NBR official, however, hoped that revenue collection would rise after the national election when the country’s economic activities might get a fresh momentum.
NBR is also taking various steps including intensifying monitoring activities on source tax deduction, bringing non-compliant taxpayers to book and increasing survey process to expedite revenue mobilisation, he said.
Source: New Age.