Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is facing debacle to reach its desired goal in collecting revenues, despite taxable people and sectors have been multiplied in the country in recent years.
Despite positive economic growth for last couple of years, the country has experienced one of the lowest tax-to-GDP ratios (9.3 percent) in the South Asian region.
It is 23.1 percent in Nepal, 16.8 percent in India and 11.0 percent in Pakistan.
A large number of individuals and firms are unregistered and the vast majority of registered individuals and firms with taxable income are not interested in paying taxes due to the lack of proper enforcement and monitoring following manpower shortage, officials said.
According to a NBR study, about four crore people in the country have the capacity to pay taxes, but the majority of them do not pay tax on their income.
The country has around 70 lakh Tax Identification Numbers (TINs). Of them, only 24-25 lakh file returns on a regular basis.
Syed Aminul Karim, former Member (TAX) of the NBR, told The New Nation, last night “Lack of proper enforcement of law, logistic support and strong monitoring, a large number of taxable people don’t pay tax. On the other hand, the tax officials are remaining under pressure physically and mentally due to the big revenue target.”
“So far I know, an expansion plan is under way to widen tax net and as per the plan tax officials will be recruited phase by phase. It will not be fruitful, if the officials are recruited by phases,” he said.
On the other hand, around 60-70 per cent Value-Added Tax (VAT) comes from the country’s 60 large corporate business houses. And a large number of taxable firms don’t pay tax. Meanwhile, the registration of Bill of Entry (BE) has increased significantly in the last five years. The number of BE was 39,24,294 in 2021, 32,79560 in 2020, 38,42,092 in 2019, 3693441 in 2018 and 33,59,449 in 2017, according the NBR.
But only three hundred customs officials handle the export-import trades.
In this hyper globalist world, ability to facilitate trade can be identified as one of the vital components of comparative advantage of a nation, the officials said.
In this regard, in the import-export activities, as a first line of defense, Customs officials have significant role. Besides, the officials participate actively to secure the country’s image in the international arena. But, the country is failing to do it due to the lack of skilled manpower and technology experts, they said.
They said the size of the development budget is increasing day by day, the country’s economy is getting bigger and 80 per cent of the budget comes through the revenue board.
Along with this, the uses of modern technologies are increasing in collecting revenues to cope with the good practices in international trade and commerce but the skill development activities for the officials are very poor, the officials said.
BCS Tax Academy and Bangladesh Customs, Excise & VAT Training Academy are supposed to operate need-based, results-oriented and market responsive training programmes aimed at building professionalism of the officials at different levels.
The purpose is to create an efficient and innovative, responsive and accountable, honest and committed public service system to meet the upcoming challenges.
