‘Revenue collection will face challenge due to political unrest’
Staff Reporter :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem said that the revenue collection will be very challenging if the political unrest is sustained in the coming months of this year.
“This is an election year. On the other hand, the country is already facing a dollar crisis.
Import has lessened and business also slowed.
If the political unrest is sustained in the coming months, the revenue collection will obviously be affected,” he said while speaking at a press conference at his office in Agargaon about the month-long income tax information service.
He said the NBR is set to begin its month-long income tax information service from tomorrow to facilitate the taxpayers in availing services and filing returns.
The NBR will not arrange the income tax fair this year like previous years.
Instead of holding tax fair, one-stop or special services will be provided to taxpayers throughout the month of November in all tax zones of the country, he added.
This year, for the first time, one-page return filing has been made available for taxpayers filing tax-free returns.
Acknowledgement and certificate will be available at the same time.
As a result, this category of taxpayers will not need to visit the tax office.
No tax fairs have been organised since 2020, when it was disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Despite the end of the pandemic, the authorities did not reverse their decision.
The number of new e-TIN holders has increased by five lakh this year, bringing the total number of e-TIN holders in the country to 95 lakh.
Although the number of e-TIN holders increased across the country, the number of people who submit income tax returns has not increased along the same ratio.
Out of 90 lakh e-TIN holders in the nation last year, around 36 lakh submitted income tax returns, according to NBR.
Meanwhile, revenue collection by the National Board of Revenue fell Tk 8,195.63 crore short of target in July to September period of the current financial year 2023-24.
In the first quarter of FY24, the NBR managed to collect Tk 76,751.30 crore in form of income tax, value-added tax and customs duty against the target of Tk 84,946.93 crore set for the period, according to NBR provisional data.
Income tax collection fell 12.98 per cent or Tk 3,526.85 crore short of the target, value-added tax collection fell 6.92 per cent or Tk 2,154.68 crore short of the target and customs revenue collection fell 9.44 per cent or Tk 2,514.10 crore short of the target in the July-September period.
However, the revenue collection grew by 14.34 per cent in July-September compared with that in the same period of the previous financial year 2022-23.
Year-on-year customs revenue increased by 7.45 per cent from Tk 22,454.94 crore, VAT revenue advanced by 18.07 per cent from Tk 24,546.74 crore and the income tax collection increased by 17.47 per cent from Tk 20,125.79 crore compared with that in the same period of FY23.
