2024-08-07 12:53:22
As the national budget sets ambitious revenue targets, it is not possible to achieve the revenue collection targets in any fiscal year. At the end of the fiscal year, it is seen that the actual target is far from being achieved, even the revised target is not possible to achieve. And such revenue collection targets have been identified as a major ‘problem’ by the Internal Resources Department (IRD) under the Finance Ministry.
Recently, the department has expressed this opinion while identifying various problems in the annual performance agreement (APA) executed with the cabinet department for the current fiscal year 2024-2025.
This information is known from the sources of the Ministry of Finance.
The IRD identified four problems with the APA in achieving the desired level of taxation. These are – procedural incoherence and procrastination in survey activities in tax range expansion; Inadequacy of information exchange in inter-tax management; Shortage of skilled manpower and lack of necessary facilities including physical infrastructure.
Meanwhile, a review of the budget statistics shows that the revised revenue collection target has not been achieved in the last eight fiscal years. Among these, the fiscal deficit under the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is the highest.
IRD has set a total revenue collection target of 5 lakh 6 thousand 485 crore rupees in the current financial year even though the high target revenue collection has been identified as a problem. However, automation of revenue management and ensuring transparency and accountability at all levels is a challenge, the agency also noted.
According to NBR, the biggest problem of the organization is shortage of manpower and inadequate trained manpower.
According to the information of IRD, in the last financial year 2021-2022, a total of about 3 lakh 1 thousand 634 crores and in 2022-2023 financial year 3 lakh 29 thousand 350 crores have been collected.
From the provisional data of NBR, it can be seen that a total revenue of Tk 3 lakh 71 thousand 842 crore has been collected in the last completed fiscal year 2023-2024. In the main budget of the last financial year, the total revenue target was 5 lakh crore. Out of this, NBR controlled revenue target was Tk 4 lakh 30 thousand crores. Later, in the revised budget, the NBR controlled revenue collection target was reduced to Tk 4 lakh 10 thousand crores. According to that, compared to the original target, the revenue is less than 38 thousand 157 crores.
According to the IRD, the tax-GDP ratio has declined in the last financial year. The tax-GDP ratio stood at 5.10 percent in the fiscal year ended 2023-2024.
On the other hand, the tax-GDP ratio stood at 5.85 percent as per NBR in the same financial year. In the previous financial year i.e. 2022-2023 this ratio was 7.38 percent. At the end of the current fiscal year 2024-2025, the tax-GDP ratio may stand at 8.45 to 8.53 percent.
Meanwhile, in the current budget, the government’s borrowing target from the savings bond sector has been set at Tk 15,400 crore, but IRD wants to confirm the target of selling savings bonds at Tk 75,000 crore in the current financial year. However, it is believed that such targets cannot be achieved in any way. Because now, due to various restrictions, the sale of savings certificates has decreased. Now it is in negative position. People are not buying savings bonds, rather sales have increased to a large extent.