The Finance Division has framed guidelines on the collection and management of levies outside the purview of the National Board of Revenue with a provision of reviewing rates at least once every three years, officials said.
The guidelines, the first of its kind, issued by the Finance Division in the past week, also made it mandatory for collecting agencies to submit the receipts to the national exchequer on the collection day.
The guidelines warned that actions would be taken if the agency failed to maintain the clause without any valid reasons.
The government incomes outside the purview of NBR, known as non-tax revenue and non-NBR tax revenue, have been projected at Tk 61,000 crore or 11.27 per cent of the overall government income of Tk 5,41,000 crore in the current FY25.
Non-tax revenue such as interest earned from loans extended by the government, administrative fees, profits from government shares in autonomous, semi-autonomous, and statutory bodies, corporations, and state-owned companies, earnings from government services and products, tolls collected from roads and bridges and fines have been projected to contribute 2.77 per cent in the current national budget.
Non-tax revenue grew by 11.9 per cent on an average from FY19 to FY23 with the highest being 69.5 per cent growth in FY20 followed by 34.7 per cent growth in FY21, as idle funds from some state-owned enterprises were transferred to the national exchequer.
Land development tax, narcotics and liquor duties, road tax, stamp duty, court fees, and motor vehicle taxes are among non-NBR taxes having been shown to contribute 8.5 per cent in the same current national budget.
The guidelines also make it mandatory for the ministries concerned to submit the quarterly report to the Finance Division and an analytical report in October.
It also defines the responsibility of the Finance Division in the management of the non-tax revenue and non-NBR taxes in the augmentation of the revenue generation that has been falling in term of the gross domestic products in recent years.
In FY22 and FY23, actual revenue collection amounted to 8.4 per cent and 8.2 per cent of GDP, respectively. During these years, the revenue-to-GDP ratio was 1.4 percentage points lower than the annual revised estimates, according to the Medium-term Macroeconomic Policy Statement 2024-25 to 2026-27 released by the finance division in June 2024.
The Finance Division has been asked to arrange a meeting on overall non-tax and non-NBR taxes every three months and give opinions on the fixation of new rates.
Besides, the division will make a database of fees and levies.
An official of the Finance Division said that the guidelines had aimed at streamlining the collection of levies and checking corruption.