bdnews24.com :
The NBR will start a fresh drive to collect more income tax from foreign nationals working here in Bangladesh.
There are around 200,000 to 500,000 foreigners living in Bangladesh at the moment, according to the NBR and home ministry.
They are here in visa categories, ranging from business to tourist visa.
Around 10,000 foreign nationals are working with valid work permits. Many of them do not pay any income tax.
NBR will start the drive from July.
Member (Tax Policy) Syed Aminul Karim hopes that NBR’s ‘tough stance’ will fetch more tax revenues.
He said, “We have taken some measures to prevent tax dodging and to get more income tax from foreigners.”
Karim said, “We do not get any taxes from foreigners without work permits. Moreover, very few of the foreigners who have work permits actually pay income tax.”
Most of the working foreigners hail from South Asian countries. They are employed, legally and illegally, in readymade garment, information technology, pharmaceuticals, engineering, marketing, service and in many other sectors.
But the government gets a tiny amount of tax from them. NBR officials suspect a large number of them have been dodging income tax year after year.
“NBR has sent letters to its field offices to step up income tax collection from foreign nationals working here. In the directive, NBR lays stress on following clause 107 of Income Tax Ordinance 1984 strictly,” Second Secretary Monitoring and Coordination (Income tax) Ashraful Islam said.
Clause 107, applicable to foreign nationals, requires foreigners to submit tax clearance or tax exemption certificates before they leave the country.
“In addition, field offices have been told to encourage private and public organisations to inform their foreign employees about their tax obligations,” added Islam.
There are currently five tax circles-three in Dhaka and two in Chittagong— tasked with collecting income taxes from foreigners.
An NBR source revealed last year one such circle in Dhaka 11 collected income tax of Tk 1.87 billion, of which foreigners gave around Tk 130 million as income tax.
