NBR rewards 402 top taxpayers
Some of the country’s top taxpayers on Monday blamed officials of the revenue board for harassment and creating tax payment complexity. They alleged that officials of the National Board of Revenue were reluctant to do their work properly and unnecessarily put burden on the existing taxpayers. They came up with their allegation at a function held on the occasion of awarding top taxpayers on the National Income Tax Day 2014.
The finance minister Abul Maal Abdul Muhith, who was present on the occasion, admitted that there were instances of harassment in the tax collection process and said the government was trying to minimize those.
‘The income tax day and tax fair are a part of the process to bring together the tax officials and the taxpayers for socialisation,’ he said at the function where 402 top and long-term taxpayers were honoured through giving them awards by the NBR.
The minister also said that if the government can properly and efficiently spend the taxpayers’ money for public welfare then people would be motivated automatically to pay taxes.
The NBR awarded 402 taxpayers comprising companies and individuals for paying the highest tax at the national level in fiscal 2012-13 and fiscal 2013-14.
Speaking on the occasion, Golam Dastagir Gazi, who was the third-highest taxpayer in 2013-14, said that
Full list of top taxpayers is on despite paying tax regularly the NBR officials harasses many honest businessmen.
‘The NBR people do not take the trouble to go to the Upazila level and hence, they failed to find new taxpayers. And to meet the target they harasses the existing taxpayers,’ he alleged.
He demanded that the NBR should introduce separate tax cards for different groups, like the individual top taxpayers and corporate top taxpayers should get different cards.
He also said that the NBR needed a complete review of its tax collection process to ease complexity.
Standard Bank Ltd chairman Kazi Akramuddin Ahmed, who was among the top-10 taxpayers in corporate category, said that the NBR officials required to rectify their behaviour, learn courtesy and improve their moral standard.
‘The NBR officials should work with service-oriented mind set and improve their accountability,’ Akram, who is also the president of the Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said.
‘There are only 13.40 lakh people who have electronic taxpayers’ identification number out of 16 crore citizens of the country,’ he said.
He also pointed out that there were 3.5 crore businessmen in the country, but only a total 11.30 lakh people pay taxes.
Addressing the function, NBR chairman Ghulam Hussain said the revenue board is working for improving its performance by overcoming the shortcomings.
‘We heard the suggestion people made here today and we will work on that in the future,’ he said.
The NBR awarded a ‘tax card’ which would give the cardholder some privileges, such as invitations to government functions and seat reservation priority in the state-run airline, trains and water transport.
The NBR is organising tax fairs since 2008 to create awarness among people to motivate them to pay tax regularly.
-With New Age input
