Bangladesh: NBR taking tax in advance to make up for shortfall

Dhaka, July 4 (New Age): The National Board of Revenue is desperately trying to achieve the revenue earnings target (Tk 1,25,000 crore) through collecting tax in advance from the corporate taxpayers and realising dues from the state-owned entities, officials said. NBR high-ups instructed field level officials of the revenue board to ensure maximum efforts to minimise the reported shortfall in revenue collection (Tk 3,000 crore) and meet the target set for each field office, they said. Referring to the provisional calculation of the NBR, they said that revenue collection in the just concluded fiscal year of 2013-2014 fell short of Tk 3,000 crore from achieving Tk 1,25,000 crore revised target set for the year. The revenue board has repeatedly instructed the field officials to realise the dues from the state-owned organisations and collect tax in advance from the large taxpayers to make up the gap. At a meeting with its commissioners, NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain also put pressure on field level taxmen to realise the dues. Officials said that the revenue board every year usually follows the techniques of collection of advance tax from the corporate taxpayers to achieve the target. Corporate taxpayers submit their income tax returns by July 15 but taxmen usually collect tax in advance from them by June, giving revenue collection a boost, they said. The NBR may finalise the revenue collection data soon. Finally, the NBR will be able to make the revenue collection shortfall smaller and even it may achieve the target after adjustment of value-added tax and taxes to be collected in advance and dues, officials said. The revenue board in the 2012–2013 financial year failed to achieve the target by Tk 3,645 crore for the first time in the past five years. They said that the revenue board had collected some Tk 1,22,000 crore in July-June against the target of Tk 1,25,000 crore due to failure of the income tax and value-added tax wings of the NBR to meet their targets. ‘Income tax fell short of the target mainly because of lower profit earnings of banks and other corporate entities, major contributors in income tax collection, and reduction of tax at source on export,’ a high official of the NBR said. He said that large taxpayer unit of the NBR, responsible for the collection of corporate tax, experienced a big shortfall above Tk 1,000 crore while the revenue board got at least Tk 500 crore less in June alone due to reduction of source tax on export, particularly readymade garment items. Collection in VAT also lagged behind the target because of slow business activities in the country in the last fiscal year amid political unrest before the national elections held in January 5 and political uncertainties in later half of the fiscal year, he said. According to the NBR data, it collected Tk 1,03,723.79 crore in the 11 months of the last fiscal year keeping Tk 21,372 crore for June, the last month of the year. In July-May, the revenue board collected Tk 38,996 crore in VAT, Tk 34,041 crore in income tax and Tk 30,015 crore in customs duties. The full-year targets for the three wings of the NBR are Tk 46,850 crore for VAT, Tk 44,360 crore for income tax and Tk 32,870 crore for customs wings. The government earlier revised down the revenue collection target from original allocation of Tk 1,36,090 crore following demand from the NBR saying that it would not be able to achieve the target because of political turmoil in the first half of the fiscal year and slower economic activities all the year round.