The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has taken a massive plan to bring under official tax network some 4.5 million business entities that are in good position but do not pay taxes.
The revenue board’s initiative is part of the government’s efforts to raise the tax-GDP ratio, an NBR official said.
The board has found that despite good financial health, these business houses have never paid tax, nor do they have any tax identification number (TIN).
A senior NBR official said finance minister AMA Muhith recently asked the board to improve the tax-GDP ratio and told them to chalk out a massive plan in this regard.
The NBR, meanwhile, formed a three-member committee with its member M Farid Uddin as its convenor. Its other members are Dr Mahbubur Rahman and Firoze Shah Alam.
The committee has gathered information about trade license holders from Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), all city corporations and metropolitan areas.
It found some 7.5 million business entities across the country that do not have any income tax file. Some 4.5 million of them have good economic standing.
“We want to bring these business houses under the tax net in the 2015-16 fiscal,” the NBR official said.
He also said the finance minister would make a specific announcement in this regard in his budget speech on Thursday.
In 2013, the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) collected information of some 80,75,000 business houses and their owners, and saw that some 4.5 million business houses are on strong economic footing while 2.9 million have got moderate financial condition.
The BBS also gathered information about the types of the business houses, their products, number of employees, type of capital and income tax-related information of their owners.
The NBR, he said, has taken the decision as it is going to get a gigantic target of revenue collection of Tk 1.76 trillion (Tk 176,370 crore) for the 2015-16 fiscal. Of the total amount, the lion’s share — Tk 65,932 crore (Tk 659 billion) — will come from the Income Tax wing.
The target for collection from VAT has been fixed at Tk 63,902 crore (Tk 639 billion) while Tk 46,536 crore (Tk 465 billion) will come from customs duty.
The revenue collection target for NBR had been fixed Tk 149,720 crore (Tk 1.49 trillion) for the 2014-15 fiscal, which is 22 percent higher than the 2013-14 fiscal. Of the total, the income tax was supposed to contribute Tk 56,580 crore (Tk 565 billiobn), VAT Tk 56,500 crore (Tk 565 billion) while Customs Tk 35,720 (Tk 357 billion) crore and Tk 920 crore (Tk 9 billion) from others.
But later the board decided to reduce it to Tk 135,028 crore (Tk 1.35 rillion) due to the political instability in the first three months of the calendar year and sent it to the Finance Ministry for final approval.
Currently, the tax-GDP ration of the country is just over 10 percent which is more than 15 percent in neighbouring countries.
At present, the registered taxpayers’ number in the country is 1.4 million who took their e-TINs through online and of them 10,76,913 submitted their tax returns in 2014-15 fiscal while 11,64,000 in 2013-14 fiscal.
The finance minister asked the NBR to raise the number in the coming years to increase the share of the direct tax (income tax).
Source: Prothom Alo
