Kathmandu, January 5

Exceeding the set target by Rs 13.89 billion, the government’s revenue collection stood at Rs 208.72 billion in the first five months of this fiscal 2016-17. With this, the government has collected around 37 per cent of the total annual collection target of the current fiscal.

The government’s revenue rose exponentially as imports surged heavily by 78.26 per cent to Rs 382.28 billion, according to the Department of Customs.

As the government has been collecting a large chunk of revenue — around 44 per cent of the total — from the customs points in the form of customs tariff, value added tax (VAT), excise and others, increase in imports has been supporting the government in achieving the revenue collection target.

Revenue collection surpassed the set target in a majority of the tax headings like VAT, customs tariff, excise and registration fees. However, the collection under income tax, vehicle tax, education and health service tax, non-tax and others headings fell short of the set target.

As per data unveiled by the Revenue Division under the Ministry of Finance (MoF), VAT — the largest tax contributor — contributed Rs 63.84 billion, followed by customs tariff at Rs 46.5 billion. Collection of customs tariff is relatively high as the infrastructure tax on petroleum products being levied from this fiscal has been collected under this heading.

Government collected Rs 3.256 billion from petroleum products. Infrastructure tax is being levied to generate funds to finance the 1,200-megawatt Budhigandaki Hydroelectric Project and the government is planning to complete the land compensation of the project from the funds generated from infrastructure tax in this fiscal.

Excise collection has continued to be the third largest contributor from the start of this fiscal. The government collected Rs 37.08 billion through excise as against a target of Rs 30.31 billion. Likewise, collection under income tax stood at Rs 27.03 billion against the target of Rs 28.19 billion.

Along with the increase in the number of transactions of land and houses in this fiscal, collection of Rs 7.9 billion under registration fees was almost double the set target of Rs 4.49 billion.

Heavy growth in collection of customs tariff, excise and registration fees was the key in revenue collection exceeding the target.

Collection under vehicle tax, non-tax and others stood at Rs 3.84 billion, Rs 17.98 billion and Rs 3.76 billion, respectively in the first five months. The set target, however, was Rs 3.99 billion for vehicles tax, Rs 19.36 billion for non-tax and Rs 4.02 billion for others.

Likewise, collection under health and education service tax was also below target. The collection under health tax stood at Rs 476.7 million against the target of Rs 540 million and that under education tax was Rs 305.4 million compared with the goal of Rs 350 million, respectively.