Most of the travel agents have been evading tax by concealing their income received as incentives or commissions from airlines and other agencies related to travel services, according to an investigation conducted by the National Board of Revenue. The central intelligence cell of the revenue board has already unearthed tax evasion by 27 such travel agents which evaded paying tax by concealing income in last six years, officials said.
‘The CIC is now investigating into the tax files of other travel agents as it suspected that those are also involved in tax evasion by concealing income from incentives and commissions,’ an NBR official said on Monday.
He said that CIC officials were now investigating on the amounts of tax evaded by the other travel agents.
There are more than 2,500 travel agents in the country under Association of Travel Agents of Bangladesh.
After assessing tax files of 27 travel agents, the CIC found that they have not shown the incentives and other commissions which they got from airlines and global distribution system (GDS) service providers in their income tax returns, he said.
In this way, they evaded a significant amount of income tax, he added.
The revenue board has already asked the 27 agents to pay the tax including penalties and some of them have paid the tax, officials said.
They said that the CIC, however, has not accumulated the actual amount of tax evaded by those agents but the amount may be around Tk 50 crore.
Those travel agents have also admitted the tax evasion and sought apology from the NBR.
In a letter sent on Thursday to the NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain, a group of travel agents said that they did not show the income in the income tax returns due to their ignorance and mistake of their tax lawyers.
Travel agents including Air Trip International, Victory Travels, International Travel Corporation, Al Gazi Travels and Saimon Overseas sought waiver from the penalties citing that they did not evade the tax willingly.
A big portion of incentives is spent for promotional activities, they claimed.
Officials of the NBR said that travel agents usually get commission or incentive bonus from airlines, general sales agents and GSD companies for selling air tickets, reserving hotel rooms, car rental and other travel related services using the platform of the companies.
According to the Income Tax Ordinance, this commission or incentive bonus is considered as taxable income.
The NBR has also imposed three per cent tax at sources on the commission or incentive bonus in the budget for the current fiscal year to prevent such tax evasion, they said.
Airlines and GSD companies will now deduct the tax while making payment to the travel agents, they said.
‘We were not aware about the rule of the revenue board. The incident has accidentally happened because of mistake of our lawyers,’ Saimon Overseas managing director MA Muhaimin Saleh, also former president of ATAB, told New Age on Tuesday.
‘It is mistake, not tax evasion,’ he claimed.
Though airlines and GSD companies provide us 7 per cent as incentives and commissions on targets of ticket selling and other services, but travel agents cannot avail more than one per cent after giving commission to sub-agents, he said.
-With New Age input
