It is good to note that in order to keep the ongoing development work and financial activities afloat the government is framing new strategies to increase the amount of revenue collection.
It needs no mentioning that due to stagnation in trade and development activities, revenue target is not being achieved at the desired rate. As reported by this daily on Sunday, in the first five months of the financial year (July-November) the revenue collection target was Tk 112,959 crore. But only Tk 8,792 crore has been realized which is 23 percent less than the target. Such deficit in revenue target has put immense pressure on financial management. Considering the situation, the government must devise prudent steps to raise revenue collection to meet the huge expenses in the New Year. Policymakers can raise revenues by modifying existing tax policy, enacting new taxes, and boosting economic activity.
Policymakers can raise revenues by modifying
existing tax
policy, enacting new taxes, and boosting
economic activity
E-commerce sector can be one of the largest tax-collecting areas. But unfortunately, authorities concerned have not been able to establish any infrastructure system to collect revenue from online business sector. Hence, it is high time to build a highly skilled ICT wing in order to collect revenues from the ICT firms or services.
It needs no emphasising that in order to collect revenue from the ICT service based business firms NBR has to bring some necessary changes in its existing VAT rules. Firstly, NBR has to identify the challenges and barriers in the area.
As the revenue authority has no infrastructure in place to collect revenue from this area, they must build necessary infrastructure to collect revenues from e-commerce sector.
In this regard, the revenue board will need a highly skilled ICT wing aiming to collect revenues from the ICT firms or services. Also the government should formulate and implement new taxation law for e-commerce which will more clearly define the parameters of the e-commerce industry.