In the first three months of the interim government, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has unearthed nearly Rs 300 crore worth of customs and tax evasion. Besides, the agency is also investigating tax evasion of all types of taxpayers, big and small. Again, the process of reforming NBR's income tax, value added tax (MUSAC) and customs departments is also ongoing.

Last Thursday, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) sent its 90-day performance and future planning report to the Cabinet. Besides, what kind of reform plan is being implemented in the revenue sector, has also been informed in this report.

According to the NBR report, the Income Tax, VAT and Customs Department has detected tax evasion of Rs 286 crore in the last three months. The VAT department has received the most information on tax evasion. VAT evasion of Tk 167 crore has been found in this sector. Because of this, 103 VAT evasion cases have been registered. 68 crores have been collected against these cases in the last three months.

On the other hand, customs department has received information of duty evasion of 39 crore rupees. As against 57 cases, as much as 6.5 million taka has been recovered in the last three months. NBR's Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) has collected a total of Rs 74 crore in the last three months. However, the report did not mention how much duty-tax evasion was found from whom.

After the fall of the Awami League government on August 5, the NBR investigated the tax evasion of the country's top six businessmen and their owned companies.

Those six top businessmen are Salman F Rahman, chairman of Beximco Group, Nazrul Islam Majumdar, chairman of NASA Group, Muhammad Aziz Khan, chairman of Summit Group, Ahmed Akbar Sobhan, chairman of Bashundhara Group, Obaidul Karim, chairman of Orion Group and Saiful Alam, chairman of S Alam Group.

All of them were known to be close to the Sheikh Hasina government. Apart from this, several businessmen, bureaucrats and suspected taxpayers are being investigated for tax evasion.

Besides, in order not to discourage honest taxpayers, the NBR canceled the facility after two months of giving the opportunity to whiten the black money. Such an incident has not happened before.

High inflation is one of the challenges of the present government. Import duty, VAT, regulatory duty, advance income tax have been reduced at the import and supply level of rice, sugar, onion, egg and edible oil in order to stabilize the price of daily commodities in the market.

The NBR report also mentioned that for a long time goods worth about eight thousand crore rupees were lying in various customs stations. Arrangements have been made for their quick redemption. Customs tax of 160 crore rupees has been collected.

Apart from this, about 35 kg of gold has been seized in the last three months. A large amount of foreign currency, mobile phones, cigarettes and drugs were seized. Bandrolls and stamps worth Rs 153 crore have also been seized.

Online system is strong

On September 9, NBR launched the online filing of annual income tax returns. After the launch of this service, so far two lakh taxpayers have submitted their returns online. In addition, an initiative has been taken to coordinate with the Supreme Court database by creating a database to quickly dispose of about 30,000 NBR cases in the Supreme Court. In these cases, more than 30000 crores of revenue is blocked.

NBR reported that initiatives have been taken to increase the rate of online VAT return submission from 85 percent to 100 percent. The agency has also set a target to complete the National Single Window (NSW) operations of the customs department online by next March.

A senior official of NBR told Yugantar that along with restoring discipline at the field level, initiatives have been taken to reform revenue collection procedures and regulations. Punitive action has been taken against the tax payers and tax officers involved in the related matters due to evidence of corruption and irregularities. As a result of these measures, revenue administration has started to speed up.

He said the National Board of Revenue (NBR) is struggling to speed up revenue collection in the fragile economic situation left by the deposed government. In spite of this, a quarter of 9 percent growth has been achieved in revenue collection till October from the negative situation in July. Since the revised budget of the previous financial year left a huge revenue deficit, this year's revenue collection target has been increased from the beginning. As a result, in the three months following the fall of the dictatorship, despite a quarter-to-nine percent increase in revenue, the deficit remained at more than 23 percent against the target. The Interim Government and the National Board of Revenue authorities have undertaken various tenure reform initiatives to make the most progress towards achieving this target. The reform initiative includes automation of revenue collection process and use of artificial intelligence (AI). Officials expect major progress in revenue collection in the second half of the fiscal year.

An NBR official said, "We have taken up the challenge of speeding up revenue collection as per the directions of the Chief Adviser and Finance Adviser." They are providing various advice on creating a transparent revenue administration. In view of this suggestion, the National Board of Revenue is working on the implementation of various reform initiatives.

According to NBR sources, there was a negative growth of 7.12 percent in revenue collection in NBR sectors in July, the last month of the fallen government. On the 5th of August, Sheikh Hasina fled in the face of mass explosions. Then on August 8, the current interim government was formed. It took several weeks for the new government to establish its authority. As a result, revenue collection in August fell by 14.34 percent to Tk 21,629 crore compared to the same period of the previous year. The new chairman of the National Board of Revenue appointed by the interim government took various steps to turn around this situation. This resulted in a positive growth of slightly more than 2 percent, coming out of the negative growth trend in September. This month, NBR collected 28 thousand 427 crores of revenue.

Revenues grew by 8.69 percent through October despite revenue cuts on several essential products to keep prices under control. In the month of October, NBR's revenue collection exceeded Tk 30 thousand crores. In the 4 months from July to October, the revenue is 1 lakh 1 thousand 344 crores.