Trade
2 years ago

Bangladesh government’s non-tax revenue dips

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Government earning from non-tax revenue (NTR), the second-biggest resource of fund mobilisation for Bangladesh, dropped 40 per cent, year on year, in the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal year.

Officials say the government collected Tk 90.34 billion during the July-September period of the fiscal year-some 40-per cent down the amount of Tk 150.5 billion received during the same period a year before.

Such picture of the fiscal side came up in the quarterly budget-execution report placed in parliament Wednesday.

People familiar with the developments at the finance division told the FE Thursday that the earnings from the Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation and similar such profitable organisations fell during the period.

They view that energy-related institutions had bad times following price hike of fuels on the international market after the reopening of the economies which created an extra demand for energy for more travels and manufacturing.

They also say the earnings from passport fees and such other travel tools were also thin following the coronavirus pandemic.

However, the government earlier had amended an act to mobilise surplus funds from profitable state-owned enterprises. And many SOEs, including the BPC, had contributed much to the national exchequer last year. Government has few hundred SOEs. Of them, only few dozen are profit-making institutions.

This shortfall of the revenues, however, did not affect budget execution as the government failed to spend the expected amount of funds during the period under review.

Development spending under the ADP was at least 7.0-per cent lower during the first quarter of the fiscal following implementation slowdown.

The revenue earnings from the government entities were 38-per cent higher during the July-September quarter of the last fiscal year.

The total revenue target for the period was Tk 657.4 billion, up by over 1.0 per cent from that in the same period a year before. Total revenue receipts stood at Tk 724 billion mainly due to rises in NBR and non-NBR taxes. Only operating expenditure was more than 14 per cent in the period.

As a result, the budget had a surplus of Tk 16.12 billion during the quarter under review.

The set target for resource collection from the NTR for the current fiscal year is Tk 430 billion or 1.1 per cent of the GDP.

During the last fiscal year, 2020-21, the NTR was Tk 588.6 billion or 1.7 per cent of the GDP.

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