Badrul Ahsan :
Thousands of foreigners have long been working in different private organizations in the country renewing tourist visa instead of obtaining employment visa, allegedly in connivance with their employers to dodge tax, according to the tax administration.
Officials at the National Board of Revenue (NBR) said tax collection from foreign nationals remained stagnant for the last couple of years although these employments in different private and non-government organizations (NGOs) marked a sharp rise during the time.
The number of foreign taxpayers remained static at around 10,000 during the last two years, the NBR said.
However, the data from Bangladesh Investment Development Authority (BIDA) shows the number of foreign employees is much higher than the present taxpaying foreign workers.
The NBR authority now plans raiding some organisations on a pilot basis to trace the foreign workers evading taxes.
“Allegations are rife that a section of foreign employees came to Bangladesh on tourist visa for avoiding tax payment. The number might be several thousand,” a senior NBR official told The New Nation preferring anonymity.
The official said absence of data hinders the activity of taxmen to crosscheck the BIDA-furnished information.
“A taskforce of NBR is working for preparing an automated databank on foreigners doing
jobs in Bangladesh,” he added.
Once such databank is formed, each foreigner may have to obtain a certain number from the NBR so that the tax administration can trace their entry and exit, he said.
The taskforce in its meeting last year recommended raiding some companies for finding out their actual foreign employees, the official said.
Taxmen are contemplating to implement the recommendation next month by paying visit to at least one organization for a case study.
The NBR will also reconstitute the taskforce as two members of the body recently went on retirement.
“We have planned to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Immigration Department to ensure information sharing on the foreign nationals,” another NBR official said.
Several NBR steps including setting up of tax-desk in airports and land ports also failed to perform as per expectation, he added.
“Income-tax desks in airports collected tax from foreign nationals in the first two months but now cannot perform well due to its location and lack of cooperation from the immigration authority,” he also said.
Taxmen collected around Tk 60 million in income tax from 150 foreign nationals in July-August 2016 from the check-posts set up at airports and Benapole land port.
In July 2016, the NBR set up four income-tax check-posts Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka, Shah Amanat International Airport, Chittagong, MAG Osmani International Airport in Sylhet and Benapole land port.
Foreign nationals have to show tax-clearance certificates at the income-tax counters at the checkpoints.
Officials said as the desk is located at a distant place in the airport and immigration authority hardly asks for the tax-clearance certificate of the departing foreign workers, many foreigners fail to notice the tax check-posts.
The counters of the check-posts should be located just beside the immigration desk, an official suggested.
Earlier, the revenue board had sent a letter to the Civil Aviation Authority to fix a visible place for relocating the income-tax check-posts at the airports.
As per income-tax ordinance, foreign workers are required to pay 30 per cent tax on their incomes. There is no tax ceiling for them.
