The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has taken a move to go after 73 lakh Taxpayers Identification Number (TIN) holders who are not submitting their income tax returns.

Currently, there are some 1,13,89,949 TIN holders in the country, of them only 40 lakhs submitted their income tax returns in the running fiscal.

200-feet long floating drum bridge becomes blessing for Lalmonirhat’s Patgram residents

“We are focusing on the issue, it is absolutely a discrimination towards the taxpayers who are paying their taxes regularly,” a senior NBR official told UNB seeking anonymity.

He said that this is very much unfortunate for a country with over 18 crore population where only 1.13 crore are TIN holders and of the total number only one third are submitting their income tax returns.

“We have instructed our field level officials to chase these non-complaint TIN holders, we have already started our works in the growth centres, our field level officials are working in there,” he said.

The NBR official said that the NBR has recently launched a new spot assessment programme to increase the tax net.

Spot assessment is an effective step to provide direct services to all taxpayers who have taxable income and are obliged to file returns.

Various tax zones of the country have already started this programme, which is playing an important role in increasing tax awareness and building a tax paying culture among businessmen, professionals and the general public.

Currently, tax zones have actively started conducting Spot Assessment at district and upazila level of the country.

The NBR urged all business organisations, chambers of commerce, business leaders, local administrations, eminent persons and taxpayers of the country to provide their unwavering support and cooperation to make the ongoing Spot Assessment activity successful.

The NBR believes that through the spot assessment activity, the tax payment tendency among taxpayers will increase and the tax system will be further strengthened.

The NBR official said that the income tax return becomes an easy matter after the launching of online return submission system.

NBR Chairman Md Abdur Rahman in a recent pre-budget meeting said that that the non- complaint TIN holders will not be able to sleep peacefully without submitting their income tax returns.

“Officers will serve them notices to submit their returns,” he had told the pre-budget meeting.

The NBR thinks that there is immense scope to widen the tax net of the country. To materialise the claim they have started the camp for the spot assessment for the convenience of the TIN holders.

The NBR official said that even if necessary the field level officials will go to the trade bodies across the country to take information about the potential taxpayers and TIN holders who took the number to complete any business necessity.

“It is not a good practice to pressurise the taxpayers who are paying the taxes properly and regularly, and the non-complaint taxpayers will enjoy the systematic loopholes for all time, the time is over, this discrimination can not run for a long time,” he said.

The NBR has asked the field offices to serve notices, if the TIN holders failed to submit their returns, then the inspectors will visit their offices or homes or businesses entities.

“If necessary we will search for the bank accounts to figure in which account how much money is there and how much inflow and outflow has been done,” he said.

Bangladesh needs secure cotton sources to maintain export flow, avoid trade war risks: Experts

He mentioned that after the proper assessment the TIN holders will be asked to pay their taxes.

“We will take the steps, we want to widen out tax net aiming to improve the revenue collection,” he said.

He also said that In September last year, the NBR directed tax officials to halt the fresh selection of tax returns for audit, citing flaws in the existing system that subjected taxpayers to undue harassment. The current audit guidelines grant tax officials significant discretionary power, which many taxpayers have criticized as unfair.

In a formal directive, the NBR instructed all field-level tax offices not to initiate new audits until further notice. However, tax returns already selected for audit would proceed as per normal procedures.

Educated but unemployed; joblessness soars among graduates in Bangladesh  

According to the NBR the tax GDP ratio in the country is below 8 percent which is one of the the lowest in the world.