57,000 brought under tax net
The National Board of Revenue through its ongoing door-to-door survey detected till November this year 1,43,408 house owners and businessmen across the country who were dodging taxes and did not have tax identification numbers, NBR officials said. 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 survey which began on December 18 last year found that the tax dodgers did not have TINs though they had taxable income.
Most of the tax evaders spotted by the NBR survey are from Dhaka, Chittagong and Khulna, NBR officials said.
The tax office set a target of bringing 2.57 lakh houses and shop owners under the tax net by conducting the door-to-door survey and spot assessment in the posh areas in the country.
A high NBR official told New Age on Thursday that only two field level tax offices — tax zone-1 of Dhaka and tax zone Khulna — had achieved their respective targets till November while the remaining 27 tax zones across the country failed to reach their respective targets.
The NBR has already served notices on the field offices which has failed to achieve their targets for explaining reasons for their frustrating performances and asked to expedite their efforts to attain the targets, he said.
Field offices have also been asked to bring all the detected tax dodgers under the tax net and issue TIN for them, he said.
According to the NBR latest data, of the 1,43,408 alleged tax evaders, more than one lakh or 70 per cent are businessmen, 36,000 or 25 per cent are house owners and 6,000 are owners of other establishments.
Officials of the NBR’s field offices said that most of the people had taxable income but they did not pay tax over the years and even they did not obtain TINs.
From July 1 this year, the field offices of the NBR started to serve notices on them for submitting their wealth statements and pay tax.
Based on their responses, the field offices have already opened income tax files for 57,564 house and shop owners and the process of opening TINs for the remaining people is going on, they said.
Of the 57,564 house and shop owners, around 43,000 or 74 per cent people are businessmen and
12,000 or 21 per cent are house owners while the remaining people own other establishments, the data showed.
From the drive, the revenue board collected Tk 1.78 crore in income tax, the data showed.
-With New Age input
