Badrul Ahsan :
In the face of widespread allegations over concealment of actual income by the physicians, the National Board of Revenue (NBR) has planned to take a number of steps to bring tax dodging doctors under its net and thus to boost revenue collection, sources said.
To this effect, NBR has launched a move to develop a database of the city’s physicians to ensure proper tax collection.
Besides, the revenue collection authority has also mulling a plan to conduct surprise visit to the doctor’s chambers to assume their actual income.
As part of the initiative, NBR is now compiling information from different sources to bring them under an automation system to ensure the tax compliance of the professionals.
Commissioner of the tax zone-10, Apurba Kanti Das, said the tax zone has automated its database using BiTAX (Bangladesh integrated Tax) system.
He apprised a meeting of the update on the progress of income tax automation at the tax zone-10 conference room held recently. Senior secretary to Internal Resources Division (IRD) and NBR chairman Md Nojibur Rahman attended the meeting as chief guest.
The tax zone-10 is dedicated for the physicians practicing in Dhaka city. A total of 14,461 physicians are registered with the zone and were submitting annual income tax returns.
There are more than 80,000 physicians registered with the Bangladesh Medical and Dental Council (BMDC), according to the regulatory body for physicians and medical education.
“There are some doctors who do not have even taxpayer’s identification number (TIN). Some also showed private visit fee at Tk 500 though they received Tk 1,000 from each patient,” said Apurba Kanti Das.
Tax officials under the zone have recently brought 120 physicians under tax net and collected Tk 100 million from them, he said. Surprisingly, Indian homeopathic doctors have been found practicing in the country, he said.
Speaking at the meeting, the NBR chairman said the tax authority could consider building partnership with the BMDC and other similar registered authorities of the professionals to get data.
He said the audit of tax files has been automated under the system, which was a disputed matter. The audit criteria of income tax files will be selected through the system, he added.
NBR member Kalipada Halder, also project director of BiTAX under which online income tax return filing system was being implemented, said that some 4,81,712 tax returns have so far been digitized.
A total of 5,022 taxpayers have so far opened accounts with online system to file returns online, he said.
He said the number of e-TIN holders has crossed 28,03,572 as of Sunday.
“It was unexpected. The existing e-TIN system needs to be upgraded to manage the rush of increased numbers of TIN holders,” he said.
However, NBR member Abdur Razzak said the digitization of the income tax wing was on progress to ensure better services.
He said the e-payment facilities for the income taxpayers will be ensured shortly to offer them full-fledged digitized taxation service.
