UZs to be taken under tax net

A goods laden truck collided head-on with a night coach on the Dinajpur-Fulbari Highway Bailey Bridge at Parbatipur on Friday. No casualty yet to be reported.
A goods laden truck collided head-on with a night coach on the Dinajpur-Fulbari Highway Bailey Bridge at Parbatipur on Friday. No casualty yet to be reported.
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UNB, Dhaka :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is going to set up tax office in each upazila and identify tax payable house owners in divisional headquarters and district towns to provide them with e-TINs for bringing them under the tax net.
The NBR has taken the decision as it is going to get a gigantic target of revenue collection of Tk 176,370 crore for the 2015-16 fiscal. Of the total amount, the lion share will come from the Income Tax wing which is Tk 65,932 crore.
The target for collection from VAT has been fixed at Tk 63,902 crore while Tk 46,536 crore will come from customs duty.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith is going to announce the measurers for expanding the tax net in his budget speech for 2015-16 fiscal on June 4.
“We’ve no other option, we’ll have to expand the tax net as the government is not going to impose new tax in the coming budget…so this is the only option,” a senior NBR official told UNB.
He said that, as the economy of the country is getting stronger day by day, the number of income tax payable individuals is also increasing at the upazila level too.
Currently, 85 upazilas of the country have income tax offices and those would be increased gradually.
In his budget speech, the Finance Minister would give some ideas about making the income tax submission procedure even easier. He would announce the online income tax submission for all by the year-end. All the tax payers would be able to pay their tax and submit their income tax returns through online after that.
“The Finance Minister would announce the target of increasing the registered taxpayers number to one crore by 2018-19 fiscal,” the NBR official said.
He said that currently the number of registered taxpayers in the country is only 140,000. “The budget would have some features to motivate people to pay their proper tax in due time,” he said.
Official sources said the ceiling for individual income tax is likely to go up to Tk 240,000-250,000 in the next fiscal, but if it happens the minimum tax amount will also go up and it would be Tk 4,000 for all.
The tax-free ceiling for individual taxpayers remains unchanged at Tk 220,000 since 2012. Currently, taxpayers in the city corporation areas pay Tk 3,000 as minimum tax. It is Tk 2,000 for taxpayers in district towns, municipalities and Tk 1,000 for other areas.
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