Page 3 - VAT-Administration

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) was established by the Father of the Nation
th
Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, through the 76 Presidential Order in 1972. To
rebuild a war torn nation the biggest challenge was to accumulate and reorganize the internal
resources. In the fiscal year of 1972-73, the NBR collected a total of 166 crore taka. The
NBR has come a long way after that and the total collection in fiscal year 2016-17 was
1,85,004 crore taka. The National Board of revenue, since its inception, has been working
relentlessly to collect the internal revenue majorly through customs duty, income tax and
from 1991 the value added tax. The result of the effort by the National Board of Revenue is
today’s Bangladesh which has seen a phase shift from the donation based least developed
economy to a journey towards a middle income one. To lead this effort of collecting revenue
from internal sources, the honourable prime minister of the People’s republic of Bangladesh
Sheikh Hasina invited the countrymen to pay taxes to build a self-developed country by
saying that “আমরা সাবলmী হব, সকেল কর েদব”, while she was inaugurating the World

Trade Centre at Chittagong on 30 January 2016. The honourable Finance Minister of the
People’s Republic of Bangladesh Mr. Abul Maal Abdul Muhith also requested to the
countrymen to take part in the development of the country by paying proper taxes and he
awarded the title ‘Kor Bahadur’ to the taxpayers who are paying proper taxes. Following
their directions and under the dynamic leadership of the Senior Secretary of Internal
Resources Division, Ministry of Finance and Chairman, National Board of Revenue Mr. Md.
Nojibur Rahman, the National Board of Revenue continuously puts all its efforts to maximize
and optimize the revenue from internal sources with following slogans:

ÒDbœq‡bi Aw·‡Rb ivR¯^Ó (Revenue is the Oxygen of Development)

(Revenue for the People)
ÒRbKj¨v‡Y ivR¯^Ó

Being in line with the overall vision of the NBR, the VAT administration has adopted the
following slogan to motivate the people to pay VAT:

“মূসক িদেc জনগণ “People are giving tax

েদেশর হেc unয়ন” The country is getting developed”

Before 1991, the three major sources of revenue collected by the National Board of Revenue
are customs duty, excise duty and Income taxes. The value added tax (VAT) was introduced
in Bangladesh in 1991. Since then, scopes of excise duties are reducing and at present VAT is
the major part that constitutes the total revenue earned by the National Board of Revenue. In
the fiscal year 2017-18, the revenue target for the NBR is 2,48,190 crore taka which is
86.18% of the total revenue target of 2,87,991 crore taka. This implies that the NBR will
provide 62% of the total national budget of 4,00,266 crore taka. In this way we are on our

3