Taxpayers on Wednesday had to wait at least three to four hours for completing procedures of taking electronically generated taxpayers’ identification numbers and submitting income tax returns at the income tax fair because of inadequate number of service booths and huge rush of service seekers. Taxpayers alleged that the number of booths for providing services particularly for e-TIN registration and re-registration was inadequate compared to the number of visitors that forced them to wait for long time.
They also said that computer operators were also sluggish and committed typing mistakes in registering data on online system for issuing e-TIN.
Senior citizens and female taxpayers suffered the most due to huge crowd and slow services, witnesses said.
Despite the daylong shutdown on Wednesday, third day of the weeklong income tax fair, a large numbers of people thronged the fair venues including at the Officers’ Club in Dhaka that made the delivery services slow, taxmen said.
Service seekers, however, expressed satisfaction after getting e-TIN and submitting returns after waiting for a long time, they said.
On the third day, a total of 65,044 people received services at the fair. On the second day 62,832 people received services and on the first day (Monday) 32,354 people received services at the fair, according to NBR data.
Faruk Ahmed from Mohammadpur, an elderly taxpayer, said that he entered the fair premises before 12 noon ignoring shutdown and he could complete his process by 4.30pm.
‘I had to wait for a long time for taking e-TIN as there was huge rush of people at the booths. The NBR should have increased the number of booths considering the rush of taxpayers,’ he said.
Income tax officials, however, said that they faced severe pressure in delivering services, particularly providing e-TINs, as huge number of people gathered together at the service booths.
Visitors also did not maintain discipline and they thronged the front of services desks which made taxmen’s jobs tough, they said.
At the Officers’ Club, the NBR set up 44 booths, out of 186, for e-TIN registration and re-registration.
The National Board of Revenue organised the fourth seven-day income tax fair that began on Monday at the seven divisional cities and two-day fairs in all other district headquarters from September 16 to September 22.
The revenue board, for the first time, expanded the income tax fair, which was orgnised in 19 districts last year, to all the districts in the country to create awareness among people on the necessity of paying tax.
On Wednesday, the two-day fair began at 24 district towns—Noakhali, Feni, Lakshmipur, Cox’s Bazar, Faridpur, Madaripur, Narsingdi, Manikganj, Tangail, Munshiganj, Joypurhat, Gaibandha, Kushtia, Meherpur, Chuadanga, Kishoreganj, Jamalpur, Netrokona, Sherpur, Patuakhali, Barguna, Natore, Naogaon, Lalmonirhat and one-day mobile fair at Rangamati.
The fair will remain open for visitors from 10:00am to 6:00pm.
According to NBR data, a total of 16,415 new and old taxpayers took e-TINs on the third day of the fair.
The revenue board collected Tk 222 crore in income taxes as a total of 14,794 people submitted their income tax returns.
The NBR officials said that they took steps to expedite service delivery process.
‘We will strongly maintain queues from Thursday so that discipline can be established to speed up service delivery,’ NBR first secretary Khandker Khurshid Kamal, also a member of e-TIN system, told New Age.
He said that elderly and female taxpayers would get priority in the line and there might also be separate booths for them, he said.
Some taxpayers also failed to get e-TINs or re-registered for e-TINs because of errors in information in the National Identification Card.
The NBR, however, was receiving manually filled-up e-TIN forms from them and later will inform the taxpayers about his e-TINs through SMS on mobile.
By this time, taxpayers will have to correct mistakes in NID through the Election Commission as the NBR would provide e-TIN after verification of information with the NID database.
NBR member Bashir Uddin Ahmed said that taxpayers who have mistakes in their NID were suggested to submit e-TIN forms along with returns.
NBR at its own initiative will generate e-TIN and inform to the taxpayers after they correct such mistakes, he said.
In the first three days, the revenue board collected Tk 355.40 crore in income tax from the fair as 37,868 people submitted their returns.
The taxmen issued a total of 5,092 new e-TINs and replaced 28,074 old TINs with e-TINs.
-With New Age input
