Revenue mobilisation exceeds target in six months

The government has been able to mobilise Rs 26.24 billion revenue in a single month of Pous (mid-December to mid-January), exceeding its target by 107.2 per cent. The target for the sixth month was Rs 24.48 billion.
"Though, the government has been unable to meet its revenue collection target of Rs 71.6 billion by Rs 5 billion and collected only Rs 65.9 billion in the first five months (by mid-December), it has been able to exceed the target in the first six months (by mid-January) of the current fiscal year," said revenue secretary Krishnahari Baskota.
By the end of the sixth month (mid-January) -- first half of the current fiscal year -- the government has been able to mobilise a total of Rs 91.33 billion revenue.
Of the total revenue, the Value Added Tax (VAT) contributes 32 per cent (Rs 29.50 billion), followed by income tax in the second position with 21 per cent (Rs 19.5 billion) to the government coffer. Similarly, customs contributes 18 per cent (Rs 16.56 billion), excise 14 per cent (Rs 12.99 billion), non-tax revenue 11 per cent (Rs 9.58 billion) and others four per cent to the coffer, according to the preliminary estimation.
"The good trend in this fiscal year's revenue mobilisation is the income tax has been increasing," according to the Finance Ministry that has started probe into fake VAT bills recently.
"The recent action against the fake VAT bills by the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) is also expected to increase revenue in the coming months making the government's target of Rs 216.64 billion revenue mobilisation easy," Baskota.
Current fiscal year's revenue mobilisation has also been hit by the late budget as the budget could not be announced by scheduled July 16 due to political deadlock after the Prime Minister Madha Kumar Nepal's resignation on June end.
In absence of the budget that changes the rate of the revenue sources, the revenue collection has seen marginal growth. "In the first month (mid-August) of the current fiscal year, the government collected Rs 13.16 billion revenue that is only 12.1 per cent higher than the same period of the last fiscal year," he said, adding that the second months (mid-September) collection was at Rs 25.72 billion -- 11.2 per cent higher than the same period of last fiscal year.
Similarly, the third month's (mid-October) collection of revenue stood at Rs 37.54 billion -- only 9.4 per cent higher than the last fiscal year's same period, whereas fourth month's (mid-November) collection stood at Rs 51.24 billion -- a meagre 9.8 per cent higher than the same period of the last fiscal year.
Though, the fifth month (mid-December) witnessed Rs 65.9 billion revenue mobilisation -- 11.1 per cent higher than the same period last fiscal year, it waas lesser than the target of the current fiscal year. The revenue mobilsation of the sixth month (mid-January) that stood at Rs 91.33 billion is 14.6 per cent higher than the sme period of the last fiscal year.