Kathmandu, May 5

At a time when government is under pressure to meet the revenue collection target for the current fiscal year, the Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has started using various measures to collect revenue from the market.

Along with market inspection, IRD has also started to publish notices citing names of large tax payers who are yet to clear their tax dues and warned them to deposit their dues on time.

The IRD recently published the names of 194 firms and individuals who have not cleared their tax dues to the government and ordered them to deposit the applicable amount within mid-May.

“These firms and individuals will be penalised as per law if they fail to deposit taxes within the given time,” the IRD stated.

As per IRD, a majority of these firms and individuals have not paid value added tax and income tax, among other taxes. “These firms did not come in contact with IRD despite repeated attempts,” as per IRD officials.

Of these 194 firms and individuals who have not cleared their taxes, a majority of them are contractors.

The government had targeted 35 per cent growth in revenue collection for the ongoing fiscal. However, the growth rate has been limited to almost 21 per cent till mid- March, as per the statistics of Ministry of Finance (MoF).

According to MoF, the government has been able to collect Rs 588 billion in revenue till mid-March, which is below the government’s revenue collection target of Rs 674 billion within the given time thereby hinting that the government is likely to miss its total revenue collection target of Rs 917 billion, which was revised down from Rs 945 billion through the mid-term review of fiscal budget, for this fiscal year.

The government had last missed the revenue collection target in fiscal year 2010- 11. Following the introduction of incentive-based revenue administration by then finance minister Baburam Bhattarai in fiscal 2009-10, the government’s collection had surpassed the revenue target in subsequent years.