It is business as usual for revenue collection for the country; up to March 2024, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) had collected 63.36% of its already revised target for the entire year, once again bringing to light the sorry state of setting realistic revenue targets for the nation.
Much is said about Bangladesh's grand plans for development, of becoming a prosperous nation in a little more than a decade and a half. However, for such an ambitious goal to ever translate to reality, there remain certain issues that Bangladesh must address - and setting realistic and achievable targets, ironically, remains among the most notable ones.
What is most frustrating is that, year after year, we see this failure to meet the targets set. Year after year, the tax authorities then hound honest taxpayers in the last quarter of the fiscal year, squeezing more out of them while certain individuals and entities who enjoy an astonishing level of impunity and, quite literally, deprive the state coffers of billions of taka by finding loopholes and not paying their due of taxes.
Such a broken system has no place in a nation that is striving to be taken seriously as a regional and indeed global economy; a failure to set and meet targets does not inspire confidence, not among the general populace and certainly not among potential foreign investors in the country.
Moving forward, we hope that the NBR will finally see the light of day and do what is best for Bangladesh. That includes firstly, setting realistic goals for revenue collection, followed by cracking down on those who are cheating the system and depriving the nation of revenue. We can't have this cycle of failure any longer.
