Revenue misses target by Tk 715b until April

Taxmen stroll far behind the pared-down target for the outgoing fiscal by Tk 714.76 billion or 38.02 per cent, as of April, fundamentally for sluggish investment and ongoing macroeconomic challenges.

To rub salt into the wound, came a pen-down by the revenue staff in backlash against an ordinance promulgated by the interim government to disband the National Board of Revenue, which makes it difficult to make up for the shortfall in the remaining days of May and in June.

According to provisional data available with the National Board of Revenue (NBR), a total of Tk 3.58 trillion in domestic revenue was mobilised in the first ten months of the outgoing fiscal year in a decelerating growth rate of 3.24 per cent over the corresponding period last year.

The tax-collection growth was above 10 per cent in the first nine months of the year.

The original revenue-collection target for the fiscal year 2024-25 was Tk 4.80 trillion, which has been revised down to Tk 4.63 trillion.

Revenue officials find it difficult to get to the goal as it has to collect Tk 1.76 trillion in May and June 2025, before the fiscal year ends.

"The target would be difficult to achieve as the collection process was disrupted due to ongoing protests by the NBR officials against the NBR-bifurcation ordinance," says one revenue official about the domino effect of taxmen's pen-down strike.

The government is set to fix its total revenue target for the upcoming fiscal year at Tk 5.64 trillion, expecting nearly 4.25-percent growth from the FY25 figure.

The original revenue target was Tk 5.41 trillion for FY25, Tk 5.0 trillion for FY24, and Tk 4.33 trillion for FY23.

Of the FY26 target, Tk 4.99 trillion is likely to be set for the National Board of Revenue (NBR), while the rest will come as non-tax and non-NBR revenues.

However, the revenue board achieved 10-percent year-on-year growth in the nine months of FY25 at a pace that later tapered out.

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