Kazi Zahidul Hasan :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) plans to widen the existing tax net by bringing some new sectors under the coverage of tax at source, officials said.
They said, proposals to bring the new sectors under the tax at source would be made in next fiscal’s budget to be presented in Parliament on June 4.
The size of the budget for the fiscal 2015-16 will be near about Tk 3.0 lakh crore, with a revenue collection target of Tk 2.08 lakh crore, up by around 28 percent of the revised estimate of the current fiscal (2014-15).
“We have identified 15 new sectors which are expected to be brought under the tax at source coverage from the next fiscal,” a senior NBR official familiar with budget preparation told The New Nation on Saturday.
He added: Once these sectors are incorporated with the tax at source, it will help boost the government’s revenue collection as well as widen the existing tax net.
Presently, the Board of Revenue is collecting tax at source from 58 business sectors.
When asked, the NBR official said, what kinds of tax would be slapped on the new sectors is yet to be finalized. We are working on the issue.
He, however, declined to mention the name of the sectors to be brought under the tax at source from the next fiscal.
Justifying imposition of such tax, the NBR official said, each and every country in the world used to mobilise a major portion of revenue from imposition of such tax on various sectors. From this point of view, we are not exception of it.
Mentioning Bangladesh’s perspective, he said, income tax is generating the lion share of revenue for the government. Of which, tax at source is contributing around 54 percent of the total income tax.
Responding to a question, the NBR official said that the Revenue Board was facing problems to extract more tax from the individual tax-payers due to lack of manpower and logistics. So, it should take the strategy how to generate more with the existing manpower and capacity.
“We will also make a review of the existing coverage of tax at source because some sectors are yielding nothing for the national exchequer,” he added.
Sources in the NBR said that among the new sectors the mobile banking service is expected to be brought under the coverage of tax at source from the next fiscal.
