NBR moves to expand tax net
Staff Correspondent
The number of contestants in the upcoming general election, who have no record of paying tax, still stands at 493, out
of the total 1,545 candidates in the Election Commission’s final list.
Earlier, the National Board of Revenue found around 870 candidates, who were in the race for being elected members of the country’s 9th parliament, having no tax identification number (TIN) in the EC’s primary list of 2,362 aspirants.
The NBR will try to bring all prospective tax payers, including the people eligible for being members of parliament, under the tax net for increasing the government’s revenue earning, NBR chairman, Mohammad Abdul Mazid, told newsmen at a briefing on Monday.
‘Already there is a social recommendation to formulate strict electoral rules for making submission of TIN compulsory along with other necessary nomination papers for each contender,’ he said.
When NBR chief’s attention was drawn to party affiliation of the candidates who have no tax paying history, he said that these candidates were mostly independent and some from small parties.
The number of TIN-less contestants is only few from the major political parties, he added.
Mazid informed that this fiscal year about seven lakh people had submitted their tax returns although the number of TIN holders is around 22 lakh according to the NBR.
Courtesy: newagebd.com
