Businesspeople want Advanced Income Tax (AIT) to go. Their call resonated in a programme jointly organised by NBR and FBCCI in the capital on Tuesday. They claimed that the AIT is neither refunded nor adjusted. At present they are giving 0.05%-10% in AIT. In total, the businesspeople have to shoulder the tax burden as high as 50 per cent. Besides, the trade leaders also raised allegations of harassment, corruption and bribery in the process of VAT registration. Such embarrassing issues came out at the consultative meeting between apex trade body and revenue officials, attended by Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal. NBR Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem, however, came to repair the image of the tax collectors, saying that for the few corrupt officials the whole NBR is being discredited.
Reportedly, the minister exploited religiosity to check businesses giving bribes to the government officials. He could have successfully sermonised the government employees so that they don’t demand bribes from traders and fear the Day of Judgment and the hellfire after death.
At the end of the day, it surely surfaced that trust base between the tax collectors and the taxpayers are missing. NBR officials think businesspeople dodge the government on income tax while the taxpayers think the officers entrusted with collecting the tax money are not humane rather they are corrupt and unfriendly.
Of course, we should not forget about the revenue generation target, which is Tk 2,59,000 crore on the shoulders of the tax collectors. If they become too humane and lenient, certainly they will not be able to attain the tax generation target. On the contrary, it can be ascertained that a section of businesspeople hide their profits to cheat the government on tax money. They do Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as long as the media camera crews are there, just to give less tax whereas these corporations underpay their employees. Garment industries, which are failing to get enough workers for their sweatshops, are glaring examples of such policies. Poor women used to work in these sweatshops with the lowest payment in the world in exchange for a small amount of bread and butter. Thus, the RMG workers – malnourished for years – very logically drop out of the sewing industry still Bangladesh boasts of.
