NBR collects record Tk 62,007.47 crore revenue last fiscal

By AKM Moinuddin

Dhaka, Jul 13 (UNB) - National Board of Revenue (NBR) recorded highest revenue collection in the last fiscal (2009-10) exceeding its target, the first time under any democratic government since 2000, showing a growth rate of 18.05 percent.
The NBR collected Tk 62,007.47 crore in revenue in the last fiscal against its target of Tk 61,000 crore - an achievement rate of 101.65 percent, NBR chairman Dr Nasiruddin Ahmed said at a press conference on Tuesday.
He, however, said the calculation is temporary and the figure might rise further.
The government’s highest tax administration collected Tk 52,527.25 crore as revenue in the 2008-09 fiscal.
The NBR chairman said: “The achievement rate has been shown on the original revenue collection target as we didn’t keep the provision of revised target. We had taken the challenges to achieve the target.”
The NBR could achieve the revenue collection target during the 2007-08 fiscal under the military controlled caretaker government, which was not a normal period, he said.
NBR’s tremendous performances in two categories - VAT (value added tax) and income tax among the four categories of revenue collection - helped it to exceed the target in the last fiscal.
It earned Tk 21,643.25 crore as VAT (local) against the target of Tk 20,735 crore - 104.38 percent achievement rate with 24.51 percent growth, and Tk 17,087.14 crore under income tax against the target of Tk 16,560 crore - 103.18 percent achievement rate with 23.30 percent growth.
The NBR, however collected only Tk 385.71 crore under the category of ‘other taxes’ against its target of Tk 469 crore, which showed a negative growth of -7.39 percent.
It showed 98.52 percent success rate in revenue collection from imports with Tk 22,891.37 crore against the target of Tk 23,236 crore.
Replying to a question, NBR chairman Dr Nasir said some 1200 institutions so far installed ECRs (Electronic Cash Registers). “We’re taking preparation to launch countrywide campaign to popularize ECRs.”
The NBR took the move to introduce ECR at all small and medium enterprises in a bid to plug holes in the VAT (value added tax) collection procedure.
Dr Nasir hoped that they would be able to achieve the bigger revenue collection target set for the current fiscal (2010-11).
“The target is bigger in size but we’re hopeful to achieve the target. We’re taking preparations at grassroots level,” he said.
The NBR chairman said they set a target of bringing 400,000 new taxpayers in the tax net last fiscal but that remained marginally unachieved. “We’ve a plan to identify 5 lakh new taxpayers in the current fiscal.”
NBR members Jahan Ara Siddiqui (Board Admin), Farid Uddin (Customs and VAT), Hussain Ahmed (Customs), Md Abdul Mannan Patwary (VAT), Basir Uddin Ahmed (Tax Admin and Monitoring), Sayed Md Aminul Karim (Tax Appeal and Exemption), Shambunath (Tax Survey and Inspection) and Aminur Rahman (Income Tax Policy) were present at the press conference and replied to the queries from newsmen.
END/UNB/AKM