NBR revenue sees 14% growth in FY22
The tax authorities, however, missed the target by TK30,000 crore
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has collected more than Tk3,00,000 crore revenue from income tax, value added tax (VAT) and customs duty in fiscal 2021-22.
Even though the revenue collection in the last fiscal saw nearly 14% growth, it was Tk30,000 crore short of the target set by the government, according to NBR sources.
In the financial year 2020-21, the NBR collected Tk2,63,886 crore.
The NBR officials, however, are viewing the realized amount as a positive sign considering the state of the economy.
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They said multiple factors had contributed to the shortfall of revenue collection target which includes setting a higher target than the previous financial year, slow economic growth and the government's measures to discourage imports towards the end of the year.
The revenue collection target for fiscal 2022-23 was set at Tk3,70,000 crore, which is 23% higher than FY22.
Economists said that it will not be possible to achieve the revenue target for the current financial year considering the nature of the economy.
Dr Ahsan H Mansur, economist and executive director at Policy Research Institute (PRI), expressed an optimistic view about the NBR touching the Tk3 lakh crore milestone.
"We thought the shortfall would be more. NBR has done well in that regard. However, it was not able to collect even half of the payable revenue due to lack of capacity," he told The Business Standard.
Muhammad Abdul Majid, former chairman of NBR, however, said considering the overall economic situation of the last fiscal year, the growth rate is not bad.
He thinks that NBR is not being able to collect the amount of revenue that should be collected according to the size of the economy.
"A large number of taxable persons are outside the ambit of tax, which is putting more pressure on those who are paying taxes regularly," he said.
Economists had already predicted that the revenue target of the last financial year will not be met. Towfiqul Islam Khan, a senior research fellow of the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), forecasted the Tk30,000 crore shortfall.
The NBR mainly collects revenue through three sectors: income tax, value added tax (VAT) and customs duty.
According to sources, the income tax and customs duty sectors witnessed over 16% growth, but the growth in the VAT sector was very low.
The growth in the customs duty collection in the first 9 months of FY22 was about 20% due to the increase in the prices of consumer goods in the global market.
But the government has taken initiatives to discourage imports to prevent the dollar crisis in the domestic market. As a result, imports declined in the last three months, dragging down customs duty collection. However, at the end of the year, the growth stood at 16%.
Besides, while the collection of income tax was relatively satisfactory, at least 19 out of 30 tax zones of NBR missed the collection target.
