Government Is Trying To Increase Service Charges, Tolls And Interest
The interim government has focused on increasing the collection of non-tax revenue (NTR) to finance the budget. Besides, the government also wants to increase non-NBR tax-revenue collection known as ‘Non-NBR tax-revenue’.
Such a decision means that the income will increase from the services which the various ministries, departments, offices and agencies of the government provide to people in exchange for fees. In the official language, the matter is said, ‘The service charges will be updated every three years or as per need.’ But they will be done keeping in view the cost of providing the service, standard of living, inflation and economic and other relevant factors.
The Finance Department of the Ministry of Finance has issued a new guideline on NTR and Non-NBR (Non-NBR) tax-revenue collection and proper management. It said there is significant potential for NTR and non-NBR revenue collection to increase. There was a need to formulate a timely guideline to increase collection from these two sources, which has now been done.
Regarding this, Finance and Trade Advisor Salehuddin Ahmed told Prothom Alo yesterday that there are many opportunities to increase revenue in the country. For the time being, the Finance Department has issued guidelines for increasing NTR and non-NBR tax revenue. NBR-controlled tax-revenue augmentation is also underway.
The guidelines have been formulated with the aim of targeting NTR and non-NBR tax revenue, rational levy and taxation, identification of right sectors, regular collection of interest and dividends due to the government and fair distribution, collection and management of assets.
It has been said that ministries and departments should take initiative to identify new areas for expanding the scope of NTR and non-NBR tax-revenue from now on. Optimum use of technology should also be ensured to ensure efficiency, transparency and accountability in NTR and Non-NBR tax-revenue collection.
As per the guidelines, automatic challan or A-challan should be used for depositing the collected revenue to the government treasury. Details of revenue deposit and amount, sector, invoice number etc. should be recorded in specific registers. Fees, tolls, leases, rents etc. must be deposited on the day they are collected. However, if collected after office hours or on public holidays, it should be deposited in the government treasury on the next working day.
NTR and Non-NBR tax
The NTR sector includes dividends and profits, interest, administrative charges, fines, rents and leases, tolls, non-commercial sales, service receipts, capital revenue and non-tax revenue. Non-NBR tax-revenues are drug duty, vehicle tax, land revenue, non-judicial stamp sale and surcharge.
In the current financial year, the target of collecting 10 thousand crores from stamp sale, 7 thousand 676 crores from dividends and profits, 6 thousand 114 crores from interest, 1 thousand 915 crores from tolls and 2 thousand 250 crores from land revenue has been set.
When asked, Executive Director of South Asian Network on Economic Modeling (SANEM) Salim Raihan said, NTR and non-NBR tax may be updated to increase revenue. But care should be taken that business facilitation is not hindered. Digital systems should be introduced to bring excellence to the entire process.
Salim Raihan also said that Bangladesh is still lagging behind in terms of tax-GDP ratio. In order to improve in this area, more attention needs to be paid to the collection of income tax, VAT etc. controlled by NBR.
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Credit: www.prothomalo.com
