DOOR-TO-DOOR SURVEY
NBR opens tax files for 19,300 house, shop owners
The National Board of Revenue has brought 19,300 house and shop owners under the income tax net till June through an ongoing special survey which was started in December 2012 to detect suspected tax-dodging rich people across the country, officials said.
Under the door-to-door survey, the field offices of the NBR in December-June 2013 identified around 63,000 houses and shop owners who did not pay tax over the years and even they do not have taxpayer identification numbers, they said.
From July 1, the field offices of the NBR started to serve notices on them for submitting their wealth statements and pay tax, the NBR officials said.
Among the identified people, around 35,000 are house and apartment owners while the rest run business entities mainly shops across the country.
‘NBR’s field offices have already opened income tax files for 19,300 house and shop owners based on their responses to the notices,’ a high NBR official told New Age on Thursday.
They will have to submit their income tax returns in the current fiscal year, he said.
The field offices will also open tax files for the remaining 43,700 house and flat owners and traders within the shortest possible time if the NBR finally finds that the people have taxable income, he said adding that it seemed that most of them had taxable income.
If they have income above the limit of tax exemption, they will have to take TINs and pay tax, he said.
‘Otherwise, the revenue administration will take stern action against them including freezing their bank accounts to ensure tax collection,’ he said.
NBR officials said the revenue administration was expecting to collect Tk 1,000 crore under the move by bringing tax-evading people under the tax net.
The NBR has set a target of collecting Tk 48,300 crore in income tax in the current fiscal year.
It has set a target of bringing at least 2.57 lakh new taxpayers under the tax net by conducting door-to-door survey and spot assessment in the posh areas in the country.
A large section of house owners earn huge amount of money from house rent and businesses but they evade taxes and many of them even do not have TINs though they have taxable income, the officials involved in the survey said.
The number of tax-evading owners will be manifold when the survey will be completed.
Till now, most of the detected tax-dodgers are from Dhaka.
Under the move, officials of the 31 tax zones of the NBR are visiting houses and business entities at the metropolitan cities, districts and economically growth centres at upzila level.
They are also examining information collected from the local government authorities, utility service providing agencies and other-related organisations to identify tax dodgers.
According to an estimate prepared by the NBR, at least 60 lakh people should pay income tax while 5 lakh business entities should pay value-added tax considering the size of the economy and middle-class people in the country.
But, only 13 lakh people paid income tax and 60,000 business houses paid VAT in the last fiscal year, NBR data showed.
-With New Age input
