The National Board of Revenue has sought detailed data on economic units and businessmen in the country found by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics through Economic Census-2013 to trace potential taxpayers, officials said. They said that income tax wing of the revenue board would conduct survey based on the data to bring businessmen listed through the census under tax net if they have taxable income.
It will also collect the list of traders obtaining trade licenses from the licensing authorities including city corporations and municipalities.
After scrutinising the data and conducting surveys, the NBR will prepare a data-base of businessmen on the basis of their income tax payment status.
According to the preliminary report of the census, there are 80.75 lakh economic units in the country. Of which 45.35 lakh economic units are run through permanent establishment and 30.39 lakh economic households that are operated within their premises.
Through the census, BBS collected detailed data including size of capital, production, manpower and tax status of the economic units.
If only the permanent economic establishments are considered, the number of existing income taxpayers in the country is very negligible which is now on an average 11 lakh that include professionals, salaried persons along with traders, the revenue board officials said.
In this context, the move was taken as part of expansion of income tax net for raising the tax-GDP ratio to 14 per cent to 15 per cent by 2018 from the current 10 per cent following the instruction of finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith.
On October 21, Muhith instructed the NBR to prepare a roadmap in a month on how to raise the tax-GDP ratio by 4 per cent in next 4 years.
At a meeting on October 23 on the issue, NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain said that all trade-license holders must have to submit income tax return which is made mandatory in the Income Tax Ordinance-1984.
‘NBR member Lokman Chowdhury has recently written a letter to the director general of BBS seeking the detailed information found through the census,’ a high official of the NBR told New Age on Thursday.
According to the ordinance, BBS is bound to provide the data to the NBR, he said.
After getting the data, the revenue board will disseminate those to its field offices for conducting surveys to find tax payment status of the businessmen, he added.
Officials said that earlier the revenue board collected traders’ data from city corporations for survey purpose but it could not complete the job mainly due to manpower shortage.
NBR field offices are not well equipped with modern technology for preparing and storing the data, it was learnt.
According to the BBS preliminary report, the number of economic units in the country increased by 118 per cent and stood at 80.75 lakh in 2013 from that of 37.08 lakh in 2003.
Out of 45.35 lakh permanent economic establishments, 15.68 lakh are situated in urban areas while the remaining 29.66 lakh in rural areas.
-With New Age input
