The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has taken a tougher move to increase its collection from the Income Tax Wing by expanding its net and realising outstanding taxes, as in the first eight months of the current fiscal it collected just over 50 percent of its target for the fiscal.
The revenue collection target from the Income Tax Wing for the 2020-21 fiscal is Tk 103,945.10 crore. But, according to available data from the NBR, till February of this year the wing has been able to collect only Tk 52,854.37 crore. It means the rest, an almost equal amount of Tk 51,090.7 crore, has to be collected in just 4 months.
In February, the 8th month of the fiscal, the NBR collected Tk 6,446.87 crore, almost 10 percent more than the corresponding month in 2021, when it collected Tk 5882.03.
The collection in the first 8 months of the current fiscal, is 13.3 percent higher than what it was in the first 8 months of the last fiscal.
According to the NBR sources, the Board has directed the tax commissioners to bring all eligible persons and organisations under the tax net and to take initiatives to remove the phobia regarding hassle in tax payment.
It also asked to intensify the tax survey and activate the inactive TIN numbers as submitting income tax return has been made mandatory for every TIN holder from this fiscal.
The Income Tax Wing of the NBR has already given necessary directives to the field offices in these regards.
As a part of the internal survey, the field level officials are collecting possible taxpayers information from city corporations, Rajuk and similar organisations, and sub-registrar offices. This is popularly called ‘secondary data’. Secondary data refers to the information of the individuals that are already kept in any organisations.
READ: NBR to speed up this fiscal's VAT collection
The NBR has also started to collect information of the potential taxpayers at the upazila level through secondary data gathering, otherwise known as internal survey.
For example, a file of ‘X’ company mentions that it has 450 employees. The concerned official can ask for the names of the 450 employees and their TIN numbers.
With this little move the NBR can find out the eligible taxpayers’ names and bring them under the tax net, if they are not already.
“This is called an internal survey,” a senior NBR official explained to UNB.
In this connection, he said that at first the NBR is taking information of the trade licences that have been issued by the city corporations and municipalities.
Later, TIN will be issued in their names to bring them under tax net and collect revenue from them.
Besides, he mentioned that the NBR is taking information on foreigners from Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA), vehicle owners from the BRTA, and land buying and selling information from the sub-registry offices, power distribution offices and service oriented offices.
Information of the flat and house owners are also being taken from the National Housing Authority, the NBR official said.
All these efforts would help NBR identify the eligible taxpayers who are still staying out of the tax net.
"We hope that by this we will be able to net the affluent section of society who are evading tax," he added.
According to the NBR sources, the NBR officials generally collect information of the potential taxpayers by door-to-door survey. A senior official of the NBR said that field officials have been asked to conduct their survey maintaining health safety issues.
The total revenue target for the NBR for fiscal 2021-22 has been set at Tk 330,078 crore.
Of the total target the VAT wing will contribute the lion's share with Tk 127,745 crore.
The target for Income Tax and Tax on Profit has been set Tk 104, 952 crore. The Income Tax Wing will contribute Tk 103945.10 crore.
The revenue collection from import duty will be Tk 37, 807.18 crore, Tk 55,225.26 crore from from Supplementary Duty, Tk 55.45 crore from export duty, Tk 3685.69 crore from Excise Duty, Tk 1529.90 crore from travel tac while Tk 1050 crore from other taxes and duties.