Md. Shafiqul Islam :
Tax assessment and collection procedure is one the paramount issue of economic development for any emerging economies like Bangladesh. Tax assessment and collection procedure is one the vital issue of economic development of any economy. Taxation is outlined as one of the significant sources of government revenues to meet general requirements, specifically, for the social and economic development of the country; a collection of tax revenue has an essential impact on the overall living standard of the public and for a rustic growth, executing policies and strategies of the economy. Taxation is one of the most effective instruments to spice up the public sector’s potential performance by financing the social insurance program and reimbursing debt. It could be a central part of the development of each low and middle-income-based country.
There is a high degree of positive interrelation between the collections of tax revenues and any country’s economic development which largely depends on effective tax planning, skilled and updated tax administration, and proper implementation of tax collection systems. In recent years, some significant reforms have been made in both the administrative and policy levels in the tax system of Bangladesh. However, the performance of this sector is still not up to scratch as compared with the other countries.
The revenue generation from the sources of tax is mainly dependent on sufficient capacity of economic and administrative teams, narrow down of homogeneity across time and culture, the actual gap between the requirements as required by the law and ensured by the governments due to the inadequate human resources in tax administration, institutional weakness and inability of state governments to prioritize tax effort. Tax administration and tax reforms are the two most important factors of tax revenue generations of any country.
The narrower base of tax, unrestrained tax exemptions and unplanned tax holidays, the failure of establishing accountability, transparency, and also integrity of both the tax officials and taxpayers, repetitive tax amnesty, lack of training and hiring of qualified tax officials, the negative attitude of the most tax collectors towards taxpayers due to poor remuneration and motivation, the inability of governments to prioritize tax effort, etc. are the main constraints of collecting taxes and implementing tax policies in Bangladesh.
The tax administration should take proper steps to increase the number of tax officials, arrange good training programs to enhance the skills of current tax officials, and revise tax rules and procedures in a more convenient way to increase taxpayers’ understandability level. It also allows more time for paying tax liability, restructuring tax slaps for tax liability calculations, creating public awareness for paying taxes, and finally reforms the taxation system and capacity of tax administration to change the overall negative perceptions of taxpayers towards taxation systems of the tax administration. Some researchers found the practical obstacles of income tax administration by taking responses from TIN holders of Bangladesh. Weak tax administration is identified as one of the budding sentiments of making a national deficit budget of the country because of the failure to establish accountability, transparency, and integrity to both the tax officials and taxpayers in Bangladesh. Tax rules should be revised, and the current level of tax officials’ professionalism should be increased to enhance tax revenues in a third-world country like Bangladesh.
In addition, as per the respondents’ opinions, our current tax laws and regulations are ambiguous, and tax rules and procedures in the computation of taxes are not updated. The tax authority can tax some steps for increasing the understanding of taxpayers relating to the tax rules and procedures such as publishing the unique rules and procedures in a bulletin, showing the calculation of taxes with examples by explaining the rules in Televisions and print media, arranging seminars and opening help center in Thana or Union level for taxpayers.
At present, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) arranges a tax fair every year for seven days which is not adequate to pay taxes conveniently. Thus, the period should be increased for the taxpayers. Again, taxpayers are not satisfied with the existing tax slabs and tax rate in Bangladesh. Thus, NBR and Finance Ministry should rethink this matter seriously for making the fiscal policy and Budget in Bangladesh. Government should motivate the public to pay taxes willingly. Moreover, the attitude of tax officials towards taxpayers should be changed by increasing rewards, remuneration, and motivation. Otherwise, the tendency of tax evasion and tax avoidance will be increased.
(Md. Shafiqul Islam is Assistant Professor, Dept of Accounting & Information Systems, Jatiya Kabi Kazi Nazrul Islam University).
