Simple procedures being pursued in tax collection: NBR Chairman

Chairman of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) Abu Hena Md Rahmatul Muneem said that simple procedures are being followed in tax collection to enrich the state coffer further.

"We're constantly making automation to simplify the tax payment process while the Income Tax Act-2023 has also been enacted. The new law has been presented in a simple manner to make the tax related services easy," he said.

The NBR Chairman said this while presiding over a function marking the distribution of tax award and tax honour award to the best taxpayers for the FY23 held at the Bangabandhu International Conference Center (BICC) in the capital today.

At the event, some 141 individuals and organizations were awarded National Tax Cards or Tax Cards and honour awards for being the best taxpayers in the Fiscal Year 2022-23. Among them 76 were individuals, 54 were companies and 11 in other categories.

Alongside the NBR Chairman, Finance Secretary Dr. Md. Khairuzzaman Mozumder handed over the tax cards and tax honour award to the best tax payer individuals and representatives of the companies and organizations.

Calling upon the taxpayers to come to the concerned tax offices if they have any problem related to tax, Muneem, also the Senior Secretary of the Internal Resources Division (IRD), said, "The new tax law has been presented simply.

However, if any tax related problem arises, please visit the tax office. Each tax office remains open for taxpayers on a specific day. Please talk to the tax officials and receive the desired services."

Mentioning that there are three sectors of revenue collection by the NBR which are - income tax, customs and VAT, Muneem said revenue from income tax is increasing day by day due to the increase in income at the individual level. "Dependency on customs duty is declining leading to the changing pattern in the structure of revenue," he added.

He said the government has already approved the proposal given by NBR to expand the income tax department.

Finance Secretary Dr. Md. Khairuzzaman Mazumder said that the NBR has been doing some good work to increase the internal revenue.

For example, he cited that the new VAT Act was introduced in 2019. In addition to the implementation of the new Income Tax Act, he said the Customs Act was also passed in the Jatiya Sangsad this year.

Dr Mozumder also expressed his high optimism that these three major steps would play a special role in revenue collection.

He said that the e-challan system has ensured instant revenue collection alongside eliminating the weakness of record keeping after revenue collection.

Listing some of the steps taken by the government to expand revenue mobilization, he said, "We want to achieve 10 million taxpayers by 2026 while we've also a target to implement the medium and long-term revenue strategy by June 2024. Besides, we've goal to raise the revenue income to 0.5 percent of GDP in this year, to 0.5 percent in the next year and 0.7 percent of GDP in the following year."

The Finance Secretary also said, "I'm fully optimistic that we'll be able to achieve these goals in the way we're currently collecting revenue. I think income tax will be an important tool for revenue generation the way we're progressing ahead."

He said that the nation has already achieved two milestones of successes in the economy -- one of them is graduating from the lower middle income country status in 2015 and another is graduating to a developing country in 2026.

However, he said there is a big challenge -- firstly, the duty-free access that the country is currently enjoying in different countries of the world would not exist. At the same time, the subsidy facilities given to the exporters should also be stopped.

For these two reasons, Dr Mozumder said the competitiveness of the export sector would definitely decline which may affect exports.

He said that import duty should be reduced to increase the export competitiveness which will create challenges in revenue generation. "There is no alternative for increasing the internal revenue to overcome this challenge," he added.

The Finance Secretary believed that it would be possible to achieve the target of revenue income of Taka 4.30 lakh crore in the current fiscal year (FY24).