NBR to supplement govt’s efforts to build discrimination-free country

National Board of Revenue (NBR) Chairman Md Abdur Rahman Khan today said that the revenue board is pledge-bound to supplement the government's efforts to build a discrimination-free and corruption-free country talking alongside all concerned.

"Definitely, we want to build a discrimination-free and corruption-free Bangladesh and the NBR is pledge-bound in this regard. We'll accomplish the task taking alongside all," he said.

Rahman said this while talking to reporters after the official launching of the new e-Return Service Centre at the NBR Bhaban in the capital's Agargaon area this morning.

Md Abdur Rahman Khan, along with Michal Krejza, Head of Cooperation, Delegation of the EU to Bangladesh, formally opened this new service center.

Asked how long it would take to accomplish such task, Rahman said it is hard to say how long it would take adding, "We're fine tuning everything gradually."

Answering to a question on what would be the consequences of those who have already availed the facility for whitening undisclosed money before the interim government scrapped such provision, the NBR Chairman said if any taxpayer availed such facility before the provision was repealed, then he would get such facility as per the law.

"We won't go beyond the jurisdiction of law. As long as the law was in force, the facility was legal," he added.

Rahman said when the provision was scrapped by this interim government, then it became illegal from that moment.

In replying to another question, the revenue board boss suggested the taxpayers to make their mobile phone SIMs biometric and thus exercise submission of their returns through online.

Out of the country's total taxpayers of some 1.04 crore, he said some 44 lakh usually submit their returns. "We want to raise the number of returns, if they submit returns online, then it will be easier for them.

"We want to hear directly from the taxpayers what kind of problems they are facing while submitting returns through online and then we'll take action promptly," he said.

Asked about the measures taken by the NBR to avert tax evasion, Rahman said it matters with the capacity as it is not possible to deal with all things at a time.

"We're giving priority to those cases and individuals against whom we're getting specific data and information from various sources like media and intelligence and such efforts will definitely continue against the corporate taxpayers. It's routine work actually...it's not possible in one go."

About the performances of tax zones on the drives against the large tax evaders, he said the time has just started after the formation of the interim government as it takes some time to take necessary preparations.

Responding to another question, the revenue board chief said, the NBR has some image crisis that when it selects tax files for scrutinizing, then quite often the exercise becomes not objective. "We often receive such kind of objections from the taxpayers. For this, we want to select auditing of tax files without the intervention of human to avert any question. So, we'll make such selection through digitized method."

He said the common philosophy is that they would trace out those who evade tax and thus take legal action and bring back the revenues to the government exchequer.

Asked whether the tariff on various commodities would be reviewed, he said it would be looked into during the budgetary process.

"Some reforms will take place in the revenue sector and those won't be carried out in one go rather gradually," he said.

About the justification of existing tax-free income ceiling, the NBR chief said if the ceiling is raised further, then a big chunk of taxpayers would go out of the tax net since it is very small here representing only 5.2 percent of the total population which is 23 percent in India.

"Out of the total taxpayers of some 1.04 crore, some 30 lakh to 34 lakh taxpayers do not pay tax," he said adding that if the number reduces further, then the tax collection would decline more.

Responding to another question, he said the government is very much sincere in reducing the backlog of tax related cases as a separate bench has already been formed in this regard with the High Court as well as the ADR initiative is also paying off.

About the service center, he said through availing service from this center, the taxpayers would not need to go to the tax office to take due services as well as they can print the TIN certificates.

"It's really a user-friendly system," he said wondering why the total number of taxpayers through submitting e-returns did not reach one crore over the last four years since such service was launched in 2021.

Directing the concerned revenue board officials to make this e-return popular, Rahman, also the secretary of the Internal Resources Division (IRD), said that they would resolve the existing problems and barriers in the way of this service with support from the EU.

"Make this e-return popular as it is easy and safe...this is environment friendly by all means...It also saves time and cost," he told the tax officials.

Rahman also urged all to submit their returns online in a bid to avail their desired services with ease and comfort.