National Board of Revenue said the ongoing political unrest has become a barrier towards achieving 24% revenue earning growth in the current fiscal year.
In an assessment report submitted to Finance Division, the NBR cited that the economic activities have been marred by the country-wide non-stop blockade along with hartals since the start of the second half of the fiscal year.
The unrest has already cast negative impact on the various fields in the economy.
In the first seven months of the fiscal year, the NBR has collected an aggregate tax revenue of Tk69,848 crore at a growth rate of 16.74%. It will now have to collect Tk79,152 crore in the remaining five months of the year.
But the NBR chairman said they were “trying hard” to overcome the barriers.
“We have taken strong efforts to achieve the targeted revenue earning growth. The officials are working hard to this end,” NBR chairman Nojibur Rahman told Dhaka Tribune.
The NBR fears that the government’s projected GDP growth of 7.3% might not be achieved because of the political turmoil.
Besides, the Annual Development Programme has been revised down to Tk75,000 crore from Tk80,314 crore, but the revised ADP implementation target could not be achieved due to the unrest, the report said.
Exports, remittance and private sector investment would also be significantly hampered if the unrest continued, it said.
The growth rate of NBR earning might not be achieved as most of the renowned banks saw their profits and investment decline in 2014 due to political unrest and a raise in default loans.
Revenue board earning from the export sector declined due to reduction in export tax rate from 0.8% to 0.3%, according to the NBR report.
Declining growth of mobile sector would cast a negative impact on the growth rate of NBR earning. The growth in mobile SIM card sales has also dropped to 6.1% at the end of January this year compared to the same period in the previous year. The earlier sale growth of the mobile SIM card sales was 17.89% at the end of January 2014.
The growth rate of the country’s import declined to 5% at the end of February this year compared to February 2014 due to the prolonged blockade and hartal, the report said.
The government has set a total target of Tk1,49,720 crore reveune earning for the NBR in the current 2014-15 fiscal year.