The National Board of Revenue, or NBR, will step up its focus on large taxpayers until June of the current fiscal year after it has found VAT collection slipped by nearly 40 per cent last month.
The board has decided to depend on top revenue generating sectors such as tobacco, telecom, bank, mobile financial services, internet, pharmaceuticals and some other sectors to achieve the VAT collection target.
VAT collection fell by 39 per cent to Tk 36.48 billion in April, down from Tk 60.15 billion in March and officials attribute the slump to the government-enforced shutdowns.
Worried over the trend, the VAT wing on Sunday instructed its field-level offices across the country to devise strategies for the next one month and 19 days to achieve the revised target for revenue collection.
To attain the revised VAT collection target, the NBR will have to collect Tk 408.40 billion in the remaining period of FY 2019-20, according to an order issued by VAT implementation and IT member Mohammad Jamal Hossain.
The revised target for VAT collection is Tk 1.08 trillion for FY 20.
Until April, the VAT wing collected revenue worth Tk 677.59 billion or 62.39 per cent of the target.
During FY 2018-19, the NBR collected a total of Tk 871.75 billion in VAT.
In the order, the VAT member said field-offices will require collecting Tk 194.16 billion in the months of May and June to collect the consumption tax to reach the last year's level.
"We are aware of the current situation which may either be improved or remain same, but whatever the situation is, efforts for achieving the target have to be continued in a strategic way," the NBR member said in the instruction.
He requested the VAT commissioners to keep close contact with the large taxpayers and concentrate more on recovering arrears and source revenue.
