Dollar revenue for last year increases

Dollar revenue earned by the State through Maldives Inland Revenue Authority (MIRA) has increased by 4 percent in 2012.

Statistics from MIRA show that between December and January of last year, the

authority had collected $269.6 million, whereas in the same period of 2011, the authority had collected $257.6 million. This shows an increase of 4 percent, an amount of $11.9 million.

The most amount of dollar revenue was collected from GST last year which sums up to $101.8 million, which calculates to 35.8 percent of the total revenue. Next highest revenue earned was an amount of $67.5 million (14.5%) from Tourism Land Rent, and an amount of $52.6 million (11.3%) from Tourism Tax. Revenue is predicted to increase this year with the TGST raised to 8 percent.

An amount of $19.6 million revenue was earned as Airport Service Charge and an amount of $12.3 million as Business Profit Tax. Duty Free Royalty had earned an amount of $2.3 million and $1.7 million was earned from different fines levied by the government. The trade of State lands had earned $775,957.

Dollar revenue is important to the Maldives because the country imports a greater percentage of its goods. Shortage and unavailability of dollars is the biggest problem faced in the economy today. The official trading rate for Dollar is averagely at MVR 15.42, while the black market rates are around MVR 16 to MVR 18.

International Monetary Fund (IMF) has advised the government to take special measures to hold the dollar revenue inside the economy. Some of the recommendations include to enforce a decrease the amount of dollars the resorts can exchange at one given time, and a mechanism to accurately monitor the money that goes in and out of the economy.

MIRA had earned a total MVR 7.1 billion in revenues last year. This is large increase compared to figures of 2011 which summed up to MVR 4.6 billion.