Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to issue Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) to give legal base for the newly introduced electronic tax deduction at source (e-TDS).
Tax at source is, currently, contributing around 64 per cent to the county’s direct tax and the NBR collects source tax from 53 sectors including banks, multinational companies and universities.
NBR introduced e-TDS, a taxpayer-friendly and time-befitting system, in last October to facilitate some 350,000 corporate companies as per the income tax ordinance sections 58 and 75(a).
Since then, the system has been operating across the country experimentally and has already gained popularity. Following this, the NBR took initiatives to make the automated system a sustainable one.
Giving legal base and issuing SRO, NBR had sent a draft to the Law Ministry for vetting and the ministry gave some observations including specification in some cases, NBR officials said.
“Law Ministry gave some observations and we are preparing for it. After completing the vetting process, NBR will issue SRO in this regard. It may take one or two weeks,” said an official wishing his anonymity.
“Collection of TDS will increase significantly if the system gets legal base. The SRO will also help to expand the system rapidly across the country,” he said.
Automation of the e-TDS system can check leakage of taxes and thwart tax evasion, he added.
Earlier, NBR Chairman Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem instructed all tax zones across the country to popularise the system.
A 21-member team of tax officials developed the e-TDS system through interconnecting with the a-challan system of the Ministry of Finance.
Manual tax collection at source is time consuming and the entire process is burdensome as well. For instance, a refund requires 26 reports to be submitted at public offices, according to the revenue board.
On the contrary, the newly introduced e-TDS deducts taxes at source automatically, deposits it to the state coffers, and reports with an automated challan (A-Challan).
Around 5 thousands corporate houses have already registered with the system and the revenue board has collected Tk 666 crore as source tax through it, NBR officials said.
Zahid Hasan, Member (tax) of the NBR, told The New Nation, “There is no need to go to the income tax office to deposit money deducted from tax at source for introducing the new system. Source tax deducting companies can deposit it from their office through Automated Challan (A-Challan).”
“We can easily find out which company and how much is depositing. The system will bring transparency in the entire source tax system,” he added.
NBR is imparting training for the tax related officials of corporate houses and lawyers to popularize the online based service e-TDS and to make interested in using this method, Zahid Hasan said.
Both time and cost of the businesses will be reduced, if they use this method, he added. On an average, 30,000 companies filed their returns each year.
