State minister for finance MA Mannan and NBR chairman Md Nojibur Rahman hand over a set of hardware to income tax commissioner for Barisal Zone Zahid Hasan at a hardware distribution programme in Dhaka on Tuesday to facilitate filing of income tax returns online from July.
Taxpayers will be able to file their income tax returns online from July from anywhere without visiting tax offices, the National Board of Revenue said on Tuesday.
They will also be able to pay income tax, submit scanned copies of all documents and obtain tax receipt under the e-filing programme of the NBR, it said.
‘Income tax administration will conduct a pilot programme at income tax Zone-8 of Dhaka in March before officially launching the e-filng system,’ NBR member Kalipada Halder said at a hardware distribution programme at the revenue board headquarters.
The NBR arranged the programme to distribute hardware including computers and printers among the tax offices to facilitate online return submission activities at all field level offices of the income tax wing.
State minister for finance MA Mannan and NBR chairman Md Nojibur Rahman handed over a set of hardware to income tax commissioner for Barisal Zone Zahid Hasan at the programme.
All the 649 income tax circles will be fully equipped for providing online service to the taxpayers, Kalipada, also project director of the strengthening governance management project under which e-filing programme is being implemented, said.
They will also be able to pay tax through the existing e-payment portal of the NBR, he said, adding that if a taxpayer do not have credit or debit card to pay tax online he will also be able to submit returns online by uploading tax payment documents at the portal.
State minister for finance MA Manan said that introduction of online return submission would take forward the digitization programme of the government and will help to create taxpayer-friendly environment for increasing revenue collection.
The NBR chairman termed the hardware distribution ceremony as a great success in the way to build digital and paperless tax administration.
Officials said that taxpayers need not visit tax offices for filing returns which will remove the alleged harassment to taxpayers by the taxmen as all the processes including returns submission, processing and tax calculation will be done automated.
Under the project, online taxpayer identification number portal will be integrated with the e-filing website so that taxpayers can obtain e-TIN from the same platform, they said.
Manual submission of income tax returns will be phased out after few years of successful run of the online filing, they said.
Under the Tk 51.31 crore project, gradually, the two other wings of the NBR—value-added tax and customs—will be integrated with the system.
Earlier, NBR’s two separate initiatives of e-filing at large taxpayers unit and Zone-8 failed due to various limitations including conditions to visit tax offices for tax clearance certificates, submission of hard copies and lack of proper e-payment process. On the other hand, the initiatives were taken in scattered manner.
The data centre of the system has been set up at Bangladesh Computer Centre’s server at city’s Agargaon area.
Vietnam-based FPT Information System Corporation is implementing the project with the financial assistance of the Asian Development Bank.
Officials said that the deduction of income tax at source, refund creation and some other services will also be automated under the project to be completed by December, 2016.
NBR member (income tax administration) Abdur Razzak also spoke at the function.
Source: New Age
