Tax Dodging House Owners, Businessmen
Fresh survey starts in Feb to bring 2 lakh under NBR net
The National Board of Revenue is going to start a fresh door-to-door survey from next month to bring at least 2 lakh suspected tax dodging house owners and businessmen under the income tax net, officials of the revenue board said. They said the NBR took the initiative against the background of unsatisfactory outcome from the ongoing door-to-door survey which started in December 2012 and is set to end on January 31.
Till November 2013, the revenue board detected only 57 per cent or 1,43,408 suspected tax dodging house owners and businessmen across the country against the target of 2.57 lakh, according to NBR data.
Of the suspected tax evaders, 57,564 house and shop owners have been brought under the income tax net by the tax administration, they said.
‘The revenue board has evaluated the result poor and disappointing as it thinks more people should come under tax net considering the economic growth and expansion of tax offices,’ a high official involved with the process told New Age on Thursday.
According to NBR data, out of 31 tax zones across the country, only two—tax zone-1 of Dhaka and tax zone Khulna—had achieved their respective targets till November while remaining 27 tax zones failed to reach their targets.
So, the NBR has decided to initiate another special survey from February 1 in a well organised and planned way with intensive monitoring, he said.
The Survey-2014 under which tax officials will visit houses, shopping centres, markets, shops at city corporations, municipalities and economic growth centres or posh areas of upazilas, in some cases unions, to identify tax dodging people and bring them under the tax net.
Under the survey, tax officials will also scrutinise information related to income, wealth and property of people collected from different government and non-government organisations, companies and other sources to find out tax paying status of people.
The NBR on Sunday issued a detailed work-plan and target of brining taxpayers under the tax net for its 31 tax zones across the country, he added.
According to the work plan, field offices will have to dispose of all the tax evading cases spotted through the survey by June 2015.
Field offices have been asked to open tax files or dispose of the cases identified or to be identified through the ongoing survey by June 2014.
There will be a committee at every tax zone headed by income tax commissioners for monitoring survey activities and commissioners will have to send progress report of the survey by 10th of every month.
Senior officials of the revenue board will visit the field offices and inspect the authenticity of the outcome of the survey.
The NBR has also asked to appoint a focal point officer at every tax zone for monitoring the survey activities.
According to the NBR plan, each tax zone will have to bring minimum 5,000 to 10,000 taxpayers
considering the location and prospect of tax zones under the tax net through the survey.
According to NBR data, of the 1,43,408 alleged tax evaders detected through the ongoing survey, more than one lakh or 70 per cent are
businessmen, 36,000 or 25 per cent are house owners and 6,000 are professionals and owners of other establishments.
Earlier, the revenue board conducted two more comprehensive surveys, one in 2004 and another in 2007.
-With New Age input
