The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has fallen behind in revenue collection for the first four months of the current FY24-25, according to officials data made available on Wednesday.
The revenue collection saw a shortfall of Tk 307.67 billion at the end of October against the target of Tk 1321.12 billion, reports UNB.
In July-October, none of the targets were met in import duty, VAT and income tax.
The biggest deficit has been in the income tax sector. The deficit in this sector was Tk 127.39 billion during July-August period.
The target was Tk 452.42 billion in the income tax sector, but Tk 324.89 billion has come to the national exchequer.
In the stipulated four months, the import duty collection was Tk 327.18 billion against the target of Tk 396.30 billion. The shortfall in this sector is about Tk 69.12 billion.
The deficit in the VAT sector for July-October period was Tk 111.02 billion. The collection from this sector was Tk 361.37 billion against the target of Tk 472.39 billion.
However, NBR officials remain optimistic about recovering the deficit in the coming months. Due to the July-August revolution, the revenue sector faced a hiccup like the trade and business in the country, they said.
Talking to UNB, some senior NBR officials said the revenue collection usually slows down in the first couple of months of every fiscal year.
"But this time the collection showed significant shortfall due to the anti-discrimination movement by the student from the first week of the July that led to the change of the government through massive bloodshed," according to one official who declined to be named as he is not authorised to talk to the media.
Throughout the month of July and the first week of August, the student movement took place across the country, affecting normal life.
Again, there was uncertainty in the business sector even after the change of government in the first week of August, he said.
"Due to these reasons, the customs and tax officials said that they could not collect the desired revenue," said another official.
This year NBR has a target to collect a revenue of Tk 4800 billion.
NBR officials believe that the pace of tax collection will pick up towards the end of the year.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh is under a $4.7-billion loan programme from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). As part of it, the revenue sector faces two key conditions. These two conditions are additional revenue collection of 1.5 per cent of GDP every year and removal of all tax exemptions by 2027. A strategy to increase revenue collection should be decided by next December.
