The gap in aggregate tax collection data between the tax offices and comptroller and auditor general’s (CAG) office surged to Tk 57 billon in the fiscal year 2012-13 due to lack of proper reconciliation.

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) recently expressed its concern over the increasing mismatch of the tax collection between the entities.

Tax collection data of NBR in FY 2012-13 was higher by Tk 57 billion than that of the data of the audit office. However, the gap was Tk 34 billion in FY 2011-12.

The board has sent letters to all of its tax offices across the country with an instruction to send monthly revenue collection data to the board after reconciliation.

In the letter, the NBR Chairman Ghulam Hussain instructed the tax offices to send the revenue collection data regularly in a bid to minimize the gap.

He asked the top officials of income tax, customs and VAT to send the revenue collection data after cross-checking with local audit offices.

To check the huge mismatch, the NBR formed a reconciliation committee in 2007 that remained inactive for the last one and a half years for unknown reasons, officials said.

The committee comprising representatives from Bangladesh Bank (BB), Internal Resources Division (IRD) and CAG has been assigned to monitor the procedure of revenue deposit in the national exchequer.

Officials said such gap in revenue collection data creates confusion among the people over actual collection of internal tax revenue from income tax, customs and VAT.

In 2009, the NBR took initiative to publish reconciled data when aggregate revenue collection data was Tk 18 billion higher than that in the CAG office in FY 2008-09. The initiative of NBR is yet to be known.

Officials said the differences in revenue collection data should be kept at nominal level as such gap might create confusion among the policy makers and taxpayers.

A senior NBR official said the gap might be caused as a result of differences in timing of receiving the tax collection data.

“VAT wing receives revenue of a month in the third quarter of next month but counts the revenue to be received in that month. This might cause the mismatch,” he said.

Dealing with figures of taxpayers’ money should be fair and monitored closely, he said.

Officials said there is a possibility of revenue leakage due to mismatch of data collection. It will be minimised if the government issues reconciled data of revenue collection, they added.

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