Badrul Ahsan :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has adopted a plan to impart tax education training to all the government officials through incorporating new topics in their training courses.
To this effect, the revenue collection authority has in the mean time drafted a course curriculum for Bangladesh Public Administration Centre, BCS Administration Academy, Financial Management Academy and other institutions to impart training on tax issues for government officials.
A high official of NBR said, there is a need for making government officials aware of tax-related issues, especially tax at source, as many of the government officials are still unclear about the provision.
He also said, the revenue board, earlier, detected some major loopholes in the collection of tax at source by government agencies causing huge losses to the public exchequer every year. Talking to the New Nation, the senior tax official said, a large chunk of revenue comes as tax at source from the project fund of government agencies.
“We have found that many of the government departments are unaware of deduction of tax at source, causing a large amount of losses to the public exchequer,” he said.
To address the problems, the NBR chairman and secretary to the Internal Resources Division (IRD), Md Nojibur Rahman has recently sent letters to all secretaries of different ministries seeking their cooperation.
He also sent letters to the ministries of public administration, home and defense and principal secretary to the Prime Minister, highlighting the urgency.
In the letter, the NBR chief urged the public administration secretary to instruct different government training centres of the country to include basic features of tax-revenue in the course curriculum. Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister had earlier also sent a letter, requesting the public administration secretary to incorporate tax education in different training centres of the government officials, the NBR officials said.
“If every thing goes accordingly, we hope that revenue collection of the government will see a boost in the years to come,” he added.
However, according to the sources, the curricula include different sessions on tax at source, four to five sessions for basic and seven to eight sessions for entire curricula.
Training could be imparted as certificate course, advanced training course and basic course, professional course, senior training course, departmental training course etc.
Earlier, a 15-day training programme for defense was arranged in November last on income tax-related issues.
Under the existing rules, the implementing agencies of foreign-funded projects have to deduce taxes while making payments to any foreign contracting firms. Tax at source, known as withholding tax or Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), contributes to more than half of the income tax collection.
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has adopted a plan to impart tax education training to all the government officials through incorporating new topics in their training courses.
To this effect, the revenue collection authority has in the mean time drafted a course curriculum for Bangladesh Public Administration Centre, BCS Administration Academy, Financial Management Academy and other institutions to impart training on tax issues for government officials.
A high official of NBR said, there is a need for making government officials aware of tax-related issues, especially tax at source, as many of the government officials are still unclear about the provision.
He also said, the revenue board, earlier, detected some major loopholes in the collection of tax at source by government agencies causing huge losses to the public exchequer every year. Talking to the New Nation, the senior tax official said, a large chunk of revenue comes as tax at source from the project fund of government agencies.
“We have found that many of the government departments are unaware of deduction of tax at source, causing a large amount of losses to the public exchequer,” he said.
To address the problems, the NBR chairman and secretary to the Internal Resources Division (IRD), Md Nojibur Rahman has recently sent letters to all secretaries of different ministries seeking their cooperation.
He also sent letters to the ministries of public administration, home and defense and principal secretary to the Prime Minister, highlighting the urgency.
In the letter, the NBR chief urged the public administration secretary to instruct different government training centres of the country to include basic features of tax-revenue in the course curriculum. Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister had earlier also sent a letter, requesting the public administration secretary to incorporate tax education in different training centres of the government officials, the NBR officials said.
“If every thing goes accordingly, we hope that revenue collection of the government will see a boost in the years to come,” he added.
However, according to the sources, the curricula include different sessions on tax at source, four to five sessions for basic and seven to eight sessions for entire curricula.
Training could be imparted as certificate course, advanced training course and basic course, professional course, senior training course, departmental training course etc.
Earlier, a 15-day training programme for defense was arranged in November last on income tax-related issues.
Under the existing rules, the implementing agencies of foreign-funded projects have to deduce taxes while making payments to any foreign contracting firms. Tax at source, known as withholding tax or Tax Deducted at Source (TDS), contributes to more than half of the income tax collection.
