April 8: The relevance of the Revenue Advisory Committee has been put into question due to the 'poor record of implementation' of the suggestions it gives to the government. The government forms such committee every year with the objective of improving the revenue administration but ignores the recommendations made by the committee.

The committee formed under the coordination of finance secretary has a total of 15 members including representatives from the private sector. The committee will be collecting suggestions till April 28 for the upcoming fiscal year 2019/2020.

Issuing a notice on April 3, the committee had sought suggestions from all stakeholders for improvement in customs duty, value added tax, income tax, excise duty, non-tax, and revenue leakage.

The advisory committee has been formed every year since 2004 with a view to incorporate the recommendations of the committee in the annual budget as well as the Financial Act.

However, economists say that only some of the recommendations made by the committee get implemented.

According to vice chair of Nepal Chamber of Commerce Kamlesh Kumar Agrawal, who was also a member of the Revenue Advisory Committee formed in 2018, the government implements only 40 percent of the recommendations made by the committee.