The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has started auditing the taxpayers'' files after a lapse of a couple of years, reports UNB.
The government in the budget for fiscal 2006-07 cut the discretionary power of the Deputy Commissioners of Tax (DCTs) to ask anything about the file of an individual taxpayer as the universal self-assessment system was adopted.
Under the system, there was a provision for auditing tax files, but the DCTs had to take prior permission from the NBR in this regard after submitting the proper documents.
As the process was found complicated, the DCTs showed their reluctance to submit documents in favour of audit.
"But the DCTs unearthed that many individual taxpayers were evading taxes under the self-assessment system and that''s why they''ve started applying to the NBR for auditing individual tax files," an NBR official told UNB.
He said some DCTs identified that a good number of individual taxpayers are evading taxes taking advantage of the universal self-assessment system.
When these incidents were brought to the notice of NBR higher authorities, the DCTs were given permission to audit the dubious tax files. "But the DCTs were asked to audit silently so that the taxpayers do not get panicked if the audit started in a bigger way," the NBR official said.
Currently, there are around 800,000 people paying taxes although the number of taxpayers'' identification numbers (TINs) is more than 2.4 million.
"NBR now wants to increase the income tax base as well as boost the revenue collection from the existing taxpayers. To generate more revenues from the existing taxpayers, the NBR has no option other than conducting audit in the income tax files," he said.
Finance Minister AMA Muhith recently hinted that the revenue target for fiscal 2009-10 would not be less than Tk 60,000 crore.
To achieve a greater revenue target, he said, the government has no alternative to increasing revenue collection from direct tax and the income tax is the main component of direct tax.
Besides, the minister directed the NBR to find out more pockets from where the government could gain revenue.
The NBR is going to bring more sectors under the direct tax net as the government apprehends less revenue from import duty in the coming days.
According to NBR sources, the next fiscal year would be a tough one for the government to collect revenue from import duties as the prices of different materials are showing downtrend.
Currently, duties and taxes from import are the highest revenue earners for the NBR with Tk 22,536 crore as target while the target for income tax, known as the main component of the direct tax, is Tk 13,054 crore. The NBR collected Tk 8,180 crore from income tax as of April 26. |
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