The recent Revenue Conference 2026, organised by the National Board of Revenue, has stirred a significantly elaborate conversation within the country's financial circles. It came at a time when revenue collection has consistently fallen short of targets, and yet the government has set the highest collection target ever. This was only the second such conference in the history of the board, the first having taken place in 2023. Officials arrived hoping to hear what the new government wants, and at least some of them got the chance to say what they want from the government. Given that the previous such gathering took place back in 2023 under a different administration altogether, the appetite among NBR people for this one was unmistakable.
However, the brevity of the event was a major limitation. Only a handful of officials managed to speak while the vast majority were left to sit silently and listen. This structure made it nearly impossible to have the kind of open, detailed exchange that could have generated new ideas or strategies for increasing tax collection. Something was lost there. Even so, credit must go where it is due. The very act of holding such a conference for an organisation not known for this sort of outreach is an achievement. A flawed beginning is better than no beginning at all.
The central theme, predictably, was weakness in revenue collection. Speakers pointed to the embarrassingly low tax-to-GDP ratio and admitted that such a ratio means the revenue board has not grown into the institution it was supposed to be. At the same time, they have pointed their fingers at the severe lack of investment in the revenue sector to explain this underperformance. According to figures cited at the conference, Bangladesh spends around 21 paisa to collect every Tk 100 of revenue, compared with 60 paisa in India, 63 paisa in Pakistan, 71 paisa in Thailand and Tk 1.70 in Japan. The conclusion drawn was that investment in revenue machinery correlates directly with higher collection ratios, meaning increased funding should be viewed as a high-return investment.
This argument suffers from a basic problem of accuracy. Officials have been quoting this identical figure for years across various forums, even as the board itself has expanded enormously. New zones and new units have been created, thousands of officers and staff have been recruited and billions more have gone into salaries, office rent, furniture and equipment. The cost of collection should not remain static when enormous expansion takes place.
The next logical question is where exactly the government would spend this additional money should it choose to do so. Officials already draw salaries under the government pay scale which is itself a heavy burden on the budget, and there is already a reward system for those who successfully uncover tax evasion. Logistics then? It is true that some newly created zones are still waiting for vehicles, but many older zones already have them, and it is far from clear that those vehicles are doing much revenue generating work. A large number of officers use official cars for personal errands or for commuting from home to office, with official use limited at best to occasional travel between offices for meetings. Given such record, it is difficult to see how increasing investment in such amenities would translate into billions of taka in fresh revenue for the state.
Prime Minister Tarique Rahman provided a sensible answer to this line of thinking. He reminded everyone that the money spent on government employees comes from taxpayers, and that a significant share of the annual budget already goes into maintaining the state machinery. The government, he said, is trying to cut costs in many areas, though support that genuinely raises efficiency will obviously be provided. This is a prudent approach especially when the country is facing economic headwinds. A related issue is the fact that many field offices are still located in rented buildings, which costs the government a massive amount in rent. Moving towards permanent buildings fits with broader government strategy, even if it does little to move the revenue needle directly.
The conference also carried the shadow of the recent dispute over the proposed bifurcation of NBR. Near the end of the previous interim administration, severe internal resistance emerged over proposals to split the revenue authority into separate policy and management divisions. The protest movement escalated to the point where port activities were shut down, crippling the entire country's economic operations. When the movement collapsed, some officers seen as having gone too far were suspended, then reinstated with light punishment such as a reduction of one or two steps in basic pay. The Anti-Corruption Commission moved to investigate allegations of unexplained wealth against some. One customs commissioner, speaking at the conference, defended the accused officials as people of strong integrity who should not be facing this kind of scrutiny. That argument does not hold up well. An honest officer has nothing to fear from an investigation. If there is no wealth beyond known income, the ACC cannot invent any. If anything, integrity is proven by scrutiny, not by immunity from it.
The Prime Minister again had a measured response to this situation. He used the analogy of a family where different members have different roles and responsibilities. Parents may become frustrated with one another or with other family members, but they do not go on strike and bring the household to a standstill. In the same manner, government employees cannot hold the economy hostage to press internal demands.
A particularly moving moment came at the conference when the acting chairman of the NBR addressed his colleagues on a more human level. He spoke of the common and often true allegations of financial misconduct that plague the department. To make his point, he referenced Leo Tolstoy's short story, "How Much Land Does a Man Need?" In the story, a man dies from exhaustion in his relentless pursuit of more land, only to need little more than six feet of earth for his grave. All that ambition and greed, the chairman said, comes to nothing in the end. He grew visibly emotional as he drew the parallel to his own department, where personal greed does lasting damage while yielding little in return. This is the lesson that must sink in, because only when personal greed is held in check can the department collect more for the state and the public perception of the NBR slowly but surely change for the better.
