The National Board of Revenue on Monday directed circles of its income tax wing that each circle must have to unearth at least one case of tax evasion a month in the current fiscal year.
The NBR has 31 income tax zones and 649 circles across the country.
The NBR’s directive came after the revenue board at a meeting with top tax officials on the day had taken the decision as part of its strategy to achieve the highest ever growth target at around 26 per cent in revenue collection for the year, NBR officials said.
At the meeting, the NBR also decided to strengthen monitoring system to boost the collection of income tax and value-added tax deducted at source, they said.
It also decided to conduct special drives to bring all potential businesses particularly shops under VAT net, they said.
The NBR arranged the meeting chaired by its chairman Ghulam Hussaion to develop a strategy to collect Tk 1,36,090 crore in revenue in the FY 2013-14.
NBR members, commissioners of income tax, VAT and customs wings and other high officials of the revenue board attended the meeting and discussed a draft strategy and possible ways to achieve the target.
Based on the discussion, the revenue board will finalise the strategy on revenue collection for the current fiscal year.
‘The NBR has decided to strengthen its monitoring to boost the collection of tax deducted at source, increase collection through audit and dispute resolution, and unearth at least one case of tax dodging a month,’ NBR member (income tax policy) Syed Aminul Karim told New Age.
He also said the revenue board decided to strengthen large taxpayer unit in Chittagong to increase collection from the corporate taxpayers.
According to NBR data, the receipts from the tax deducted at source in the fiscal year 2012-13 stood at Tk 19,700 crore, 54 per cent of total income tax collection.
The amount will be more if proper monitoring can be ensured as many organisations deduct tax at source but do not submit it to the government exchequer, a NBR official said.
For deducting tax at source, there are over 40 sources such as house rent, salary, supply and contract, imports, savings and deposits.
He said that the NBR chairman directed the commissioners to unearth by each income tax zone at least one big tax evasion case and by each circle a medium tax evasion case a month.
At the meeting, taxmen termed the target very tough to achieve but not impossible.
The NBR official said the taxmen sought sufficient manpower and logistic support from the revenue board as they were suffering for lack of field level officials like inspector and logistics like vehicles to conduct drive and survey.
A top VAT official said that the NBR also decided to conduct drives for bringing potential shops under the VAT net.
Citing an estimation made by the NBR, a high VAT official said that considering the size of the economy and business entities in the country, at least 5 lakh business entities should pay VAT but only 60,000 business houses paid VAT in the last fiscal year.
‘So, the revenue administration will have to increase the number of registered VAT payers in order to reduce the gap and to prevent tax evasion and ensure collection of VAT deducted at source,’ he said.
The NBR also planned to expand the tax net to the upazila level, reduce the hassles in tax payment and ensure proper coordination between the VAT and income tax wings to achieve the target, NBR officials said.
-With New Age input
