B Mirror Report: The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is on track to achieve the highest annual revenue collection in Bangladesh’s history despite facing a projected shortfall of around Tk 88,000 crore against its revised target for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

According to NBR officials, total revenue collection is expected to reach approximately Tk 415,000 crore by the end of the fiscal year, surpassing the previous record of Tk 370,843 crore collected in FY2024-25.

NBR Public Relations Officer Md. Al Amin Sheikh confirmed on Sunday that Tk 29,311 crore in revenue was collected during the first 20 days of June. As of June 20, total revenue collection stood at Tk 389,953 crore, already exceeding the entire collection of the previous fiscal year.

The revenue authority expects to collect an additional Tk 25,000 crore in the remaining 10 days of June, which would bring total collections to around Tk 415,000 crore. However, this would still fall short of the revised revenue target of Tk 503,000 crore by about Tk 88,000 crore.

Data from the NBR’s Statistics Division show that revenue collection during the first 11 months of FY2025-26, up to May, amounted to Tk 360,642 crore, registering a growth of 10.02 percent year-on-year. During the same period of the previous fiscal year, revenue collection stood at Tk 327,785.78 crore, meaning collections increased by Tk 32,856.22 crore.

Despite the record collection, the revenue administration remains significantly behind its target. The revised revenue target for the current fiscal year was set at Tk 503,000 crore, while the target for the first 11 months was Tk 442,084 crore. Against this, actual collection reached Tk 360,642 crore, leaving a shortfall of Tk 81,442 crore by the end of May.

All three major revenue sources—customs duties, value-added tax (VAT), and income tax—have recorded positive growth during the fiscal year.

Senior NBR officials said several special initiatives have contributed to improved revenue collection. Separate task forces have been formed in the income tax, VAT, and customs divisions to expedite the resolution of cases pending before appellate authorities, tribunals, the High Court, the Supreme Court, and through alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms.

Officials also cited enhanced efforts to detect tax evasion, recover revenues, speed up audits, strengthen tax and VAT collection at source, expand post-clearance audits, improve risk management, and conduct integrated audits of high-risk taxpayers.

However, research by the Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) suggests that the revenue shortfall could be between Tk 130,000 crore and Tk 140,000 crore, based on historical growth trends of 13-15 percent. The think tank warned that financing the government’s projected budget deficit of Tk 235,000 crore will require greater emphasis on boosting revenue collection.

The government is reportedly planning to set a revenue target of nearly Tk 695,000 crore for the 2026-27 fiscal year, indicating that the country’s revenue administration will face an even bigger challenge despite achieving record collections this year.