Al Amin :
Around 63 per cent of the Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN) holders have skipped the return submission within the deadline ended on Sunday.
Tax collection from the return submission has also declined significantly due to what the NBR officials said impact of Covid-19 pandemic, lack of logistic support for the officials and dissatisfaction among taxmen.
As per the tax ordinance, the return submission deadline was November 30. But the National Board of Revenue (NBR) extended it till January 2 due to the poor return submission.
And this year, the NBR has made it mandatory for all TIN holders, except three categories, to submit their returns.
According to a data of the NBR, there were some 62,77,760 TIN holders in the country till June of 2021 but only 22,99,625 TIN holders submitted their returns till the deadline, which was 21,51,326 till December 2020.
The revenue board earned Tk 3,281 crore from the return submission this, which was Tk4,010 crore in the last year, the NBR data said.
NBR officials said stopping the opportunity to whiten undisclosed money at 10 per cent tax and the reduction of the people’s income in 2020-21 due to the pandemic are the reasons for decreasing overall income tax collection.
They said the highest amount of undisclosed money was added to the economy due to the opportunity to whiten black money in the last fiscal year.
Around 12 thousand people have whitened the undisclosed money worth Tk 20500 crore in the last tax year and the NBR received Tk 2064 crore as revenue from this.
Besides, dissatisfaction among the tax officials, manpower shortage and lack of logistic support are also the reason for the declination of the tax collection, an NBR official, whishing his anonymity, said.
Dr Ahsan H Mansur, Executive Director of Policy Research Institute (PRI), told The New Nation on Monday, “It is normal that the tax collection will reduce as people’s income declined during the pandemic time.” “Additionally, stopping the opportunity to whiten the undisclosed money may another reason behind the fall of the tax collection,” he said.
Usually, the taxpayers can access all types of services at a single place when an income tax fair is held. The NBR had organised month-long income tax fairs for nine years to 2019.
But it cancelled the fair this year due to the pandemic and provided extensive services to the taxpayers in the last two months (November to December) at zonal offices across the country.
The NBR received the returns at 649 circles under 31 tax zones across the country during office hours during this time. The taxpayers also received an instant acknowledgement of their tax submission.
At present, there are 70 lakh TIN holders in the country.
