With only 15 days in hand, the National Board of Revenue is struggling to bring all the taxpayers under the electronic Taxpayers Identification Number (eTIN). Around half of the taxpayers have not yet registered with the eTIN.
According to figures available with the revenue body, the board could attract only around nine lakh taxpayers during about last six months only around 165,000 of them were new ones and the remaining re-registered with the eTIN.
To fulfill the target, the NBR have to bring around eight lakh people in only 15 days, officials said, apprehending that it would not be an easy task to accomplish.
“Due to the ongoing crisis, we are struggling to bring them under the tax net. The number was very good till mid-October, but for the last two months, we are struggling to bring all of them,” an official told Dhaka Tribune.
The revenue authorities introduced the system on July 1 to boost revenue collection, reduce hassles and prevent issuance of fake TINs. Many taxpayers, however, alleged that they were facing troubles in registering with the system.
Considering the complaints, the NBR has decided to open a separate cell which will deal with the eTIN related issues.
“From the very beginning, the eTIN cell lacks proper manpower and equipments to accomplish the tasks. To provide regular and hassle-free services to taxpayers, we strongly feel establishing a separate unit which will technically assist the team,” said an official, who works with eTIN services.
He said the NBR has already taken initiatives to rent an office, hire manpower and buy technical equipments needed for uninterrupted services.
The taxpayers earlier alleged that they face problems with the eTIN server because it remains off-line sometimes and shows error message saying information provided by taxpayers are not correct.
“Taxpayers need to provide valid information with the eTIN registration. If they provide wrong information, it will surely show error message because the information are cross-checked with the NID server,” the official said. “The server problem between the Election Commission and NBR will be okay as soon as the new cell starts working.”
Meanwhile, the deadline for submitting income tax return is on December 31, and all taxpayers have to obtain eTIN while filing tax returns.
NBR has now an automated database for TIN holders where existing and new ones will have to register with the eTIN within December 31, and through the process, the existing 10-digit TIN will be replaced with 12-digit ones. There would be no effectiveness of old manual 10-digit TIN from January 1 next.
For the fiscal year 2013-14, NBR set a revenue target of Tk1.36tn and the introduction of eTIN is expected to help the revenue board achieve the target, said an official.
According to the newly introduced system, computer generated TIN certificates will be issued as soon as the application procedure is completed online. Currently, a team of NBR is working on automation of TIN database with the assistance of International Finance Corporation (IFC).
Source: Dhaka Tribune
