http://www.thefinancialexpress-bd.com/2015/02/01/78760
VOL 22 NO 82 REGD NO DA 1589 | Dhaka, Sunday, February 01 2015
NBR reforms and IMF conditionalities M S Siddiqui The share of taxes in the gross domestic product (GDP) is an imperfect indicator of the quality of a tax system. The National Board of Revenue (NBR) continues to be characterised by a weak policy framework, very limited administrative modernisation, a high degree of administrative fragmentation, significant human resource constraints and weak enforcement mechanism. The persistent weakness of reform efforts is rooted in informal institutions, norms and networks sometimes referred to as a 'political settlement' and discretion and corruption. According to the World Bank, the tax revenue (percentage of GDP) in Bangladesh was last measured at 9.98 in 2011.The tax-GDP ratio is very low with about 10 per cent in Bangladesh, but it keeps improving at a slow pace. Both tax and non-tax revenues as percentage of GDP have been increasing over the years. But the status is the worst among the SAARC countries. The taxGDP ratio and revenue-GDP ratio are the lowest in Bangladesh among the eight SAARC member-states too. The country's revenue-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world and it is even lower than the revenue-GDP ratio of Nepal. The average SAARC tax-GDP ratio is about 15 per cent. The revenue-GDP ratio during the 1970s increased steadily with the exception of the period from 2001 to 2005. It increased by more than 3 percentage points from 7.5 per cent during 1973-1980 period to 10.8 per cent during 2006-2008 period. About 80 per cent of public revenues in Bangladesh are derived from tax sources and the rest 20 per cent from non-tax sources. The total tax-to-GDP ratio has increased by 2.8 per cent during this period. In contrast, the non-tax-GDP ratio has relatively been stable between 1973-1980 period to 2006-2008 period. The corporate taxpayers are the highest income taxpayers. The projection of total revenue collection from income tax, VAT and customs duty for the year 2013-14 was Tk. 1,360.90 billion which was revised downwards to Tk.1,250 billion recently. Collection from VAT has always been higher. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reform priorities for Bangladesh focused on stepping up revenue collection, strengthening the state-owned commercial banks (SoCBs) and state-owned enterprises, and improving public financial management. Steady progress is being made on the implementation of the new value added tax (VAT), with the international tendering