Better governance in focus for boosting revenue in next budget: NBR chairman

The government's revenue income will be boosted by improving governance in tax compliance and containing evasion - but not by raising taxes, National Board of Revenue Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan said today (19 March).

"Not by increasing the tax rate, this is our thumb rule," he said while speaking at a pre-budget meeting held at the conference room of Revenue Building.

He said that the tax burden will not increase during the upcoming national budget for FY25-26. Instead, the NBR is trying to minimise it.

The NBR boss said it is challenging task to balance tax collection and facilitate business and trade.

Asking all to maintain tax compliance strictly, he said that the cost of non-compliance is very high.

"You will be in great problem if you are not maintaining the tax compliance properly," he said.

Regarding the use of counterfeit band-roll by a section of bidi producers,  Khan said that fake band-roll worth some Tk 300 crore has recently been recovered in Manikganj.

"Why are you doing this, tax on bidi is comparatively low. It is 56 percent while the rate is 82% on cigarettes. You will have to pay a big price for revenue evasion," he warned.

In this connection, the NBR chairman said that there would be no option left to the agency except to enact tougher laws if the bidi factory owners failed to shun their tax evasion tendency.

"It will be tough for you to continue your business. Please keep in mind, if we find one piece of fake band-roll in future we will take stern action. If necessary we will enact new law," he said.

While his attention was drawn to imposing higher tax on imported materials by the customs officials which were actually imported at lower prices, the NBR chief asked the customs officials to be more cautious about it.

"Over-invoicing is dangerous than under-invoicing, because through under-invoicing you might get lower duties, but by the over-invoicing foreign exchange drains out from the country alarmingly, and it helps to smuggle out money," he said.

He also asked the VAT Officials to prepare their mindset for collecting VAT in a wider way, not by imposing a supplementary duty.

 Khan regretted that the state of income tax and VAT is very poor in the country.

"We are not even close to the amount we are supposed to get from income tax and VAT," he said.

He reiterated that if the business people come to a consensus on a single VAT rate then the NBR is ready to lower the VAT rate.