Govt to improve customs evaluation system

Kathmandu, July 18: Finance Minister Gyanendra Bahadur Karki said that the government was working to improve customs evaluation system, develop integrated information system, and expand the tax base to meet the target of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

The government, through the budget of the current fiscal year 2017/18, had estimated that the GDP growth in this year would be 7.2 per cent, a slight improvement from last year’s 6.94 per cent.

“Stringent measures will be taken to enhance tax compliance and control the revenue leakage,” he said at a press conference organised by the Ministry of Finance (MoF) at its office at the Singha Durbar Tuesday.

The MoF is implementing integrated data management system in order to increase the compliance in VAT (Value Added Tax) payment.

According to Revenue secretary Shishir Dhungana, the Ministry is also enhancing its monitoring activities for the same.

Speaking at a press conference organised by the MoF at the Singha Durbar, he said that as per the new plan, data of every business activity, from importing and producing a product to selling it, would be collected and integrated in a single system.

Minister Karki said that the government collected Rs. 611.76 billion in revenues in the FY 2016/17 which is 108.11 per cent as compared to previous FY 2015/16.

The government aimed at mobilizing Rs. 565.89 billion revenues last year.

Of the collected revenue, 90.5 per cent is tax-based revenue.

The government received Rs. 553.90 billion tax-based and Rs. 57.86 billion non-tax based revenue.

“VAT has the highest contribution to the national revenue with 26.63 per cent share, Rs. 161.12 billion. Likewise, income-tax consists of Rs. 151.36 billion, customs tax Rs. 112.22 billion, and excise duty Rs. 84.23 billion,” said Minister Karki.

According to him, favourable economic activities due to post-quake reconstruction and economic revival, better investment environment, increased professionalism in tax administration and increasing number of taxpayers contributed to the higher revenue collection than the earlier estimates.

He said that the government had set the revenue target of Rs. 730.05 billion for the current FY which was 29.01 per cent higher than last year’s target and 19.35 per cent higher than the revenue collected in the last FY.

Karki expressed commitment that the government would collect the revenues higher than the set target this year, too.

The average revenue mobilisation growth rate in the last five year is 21.21 per cent.

Finance secretary Dr. Shanta Raj Subedi said that as the budget had already been disbursed to the local units, there would be better expenditure this year.

“In the past, every project needed to be approved by the National Planning Commission and budget should be authorized from the MoF. Those provisions have been removed for the better implementation of the budget,” he said.