Dhaka, Feb 3 (bdnews24.com) – The country's top taxman, NBR chairman Nasiruddin Ahmed, said Wednesday that revenue collection increased by 18 percent in the first half of the fiscal year, and he is optimistic that the revenue targets will be achieved by the year end.
He said that the revenue target for the period of July-Dec was surpassed. "The target for this period was Tk 26.113 billion. We collected Tk 26.437 billion."
Nasiruddin said it marked an 18 percent rise over the same period the previous fiscal.
Although revenue from duty was a little low, there was a good rise in collection of value added tax and income tax, the NBR chairman said.
He said the year's revenue target was within reach and would not have to be adjusted or lowered.
The tax chief also divulged that students would be utilised to overcome the lack of manpower for netting new taxpayers.
Nasiruddin said 110 students will start field work from Feb 21 to detect potential taxpayers in four tax zones of the capital, after receiving training at the Tax Academy.
In response to a query on whether operations of the revenue collector's central intelligence cell (CIC) had ceased, Nasiruddin said: "The CIC operations are ongoing as normal, not under any political consideration."
Member of the National Board of Revenue, Farid Uddin, said work also ongoing to set up two special High Court benches to deal especially with the huge backlog of tax cases.
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