The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has collected a record Tk 2613.46 crore income tax revenue during the just concluded weeklong income tax fair which is Tk 144.52 crore more than the last year’s. A total of 6,55,095 taxpayers filed their returns while some 18,63,387 people received various services during the tax fair held from November 14 to 20 across the country. Some 32,961 new tax identification numbers (TINs) have also been issued at the fair.
Number of tax payers in the fairs is increasing every year as they can pay their taxes in a hassle-free manner. The revenue collection from the first tax fair in 2010 was only Tk 113 crore which has become 23 times more in just 10 years of time. In 2011, the collected revenue was Tk 414 crore, Tk 831 crore in 2012, Tk 1117 crore in 2013, Tk 1675 crore in 2014, Tk 2035.35 crore in 2015, Tk 2129.67 crore in 2016, Tk 2,217 crore in 2017 and Tk 2,468.94 crore in 2018.
Earlier the government has set a Tk 3, 25,660 crore revenue collection target for the NBR in the national budget of Tk 5, 23,190 crore for fiscal 2019-20. NBR chairman Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan has urged all the capable people to pay taxes for the sake of national development.
He further said that the NBR has set a target of achieving 20 percent of the total GDP by 2030 and urged for cooperation from all to fulfill the target. “Currently, the contribution of tax to the total GDP is 10 to 11 percent. We want to increase this up to 15 percent by 2025 and 30 percent by 2030,” the NBR chairman said.
