Revenue mobilisation looks down to target

The revenue leakages have hit the government revenue mobilisation target.
According to Finance Ministry, it has suffered a revenue shortfall of Rs 6 billion compared to its target during the first quarter of the current fiscal year.
The government has been failing to meet its revenue target since the first month of current fiscal year, the ministry source said, adding that the revenue mobilisation started falling short since the first month of the current fiscal year and could not meet its annual target, if the trend continued.
The government had set the target of Rs 16.70 billion for mid-October to mid-November, joint secretary Shanta Raj Subedi said, adding that the primary data has showed that the target will fall by Rs 700 million short.
However, the ministry said that it will make up the shortfall by increasing non-tax revenue. "The ministry is optimist that it could increase the contribution of non-tax revenue," under secretary Ganga Prasad Sharma said, adding that the revenue mobilisation will increase once public enterprises start to pay royalty.
"The registration fee and other non-tax revenue collection are also expected to increase in the coming months," he added, "Rs 6 billion shortfall is not a big deal."
However, the contribution of the non-tax revenue has negligible share in the total revenue mobilisation. "The government has only a couple of entities that can pay it tax," according to another official at the Finance Ministry.
Fines, penalties, service fees, judicial fees, registration fee comes under non-tax revenue, the ministry source said, adding that non-tax revenue collection cannot work miracle since the transaction of real estate has slumped and most of the public enterprises themselves are in the dire need of capital injection.
The Value Added Tax (VAT) is the largest contributor in the revenue followed by income tax, according to the last year's revenue mobilisation data.
The government had planned to mobilise Rs 248 billion revenue in the current fiscal year but it seems it cannot be able to meet target, like the last fiscal year, when it had recorded Rs 6 billion shortfall in its revenue mobilisation target.

IRD probes 405 firms
KATHMANDU: Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has completed the investigation of 405 firms that had 'cheated' the national coffer by producing fake VAT bills. The department has fixed Rs 3.58 billion revenue from these firms, the department source said, adding that it will complete the investigation of rests of the 113 firms soon. "Most of the remaining cases are related to the large taxpayers," it said.