Tax return submission mandatory to avail six more services
Staff Reporter :
The government is going to include six more services against the mandatorysubmission of tax returns from the next budget, according to the Ministry of Finance.
Since the beginning of the current financial year, submission of income tax return slip was made mandatory for availing 38 government services.
As a result, people would not be able to avail nearly 44 types of services unless they submit tax returns to the government from the coming financial year.
Among the current 38 types of services that are subject to the obligation to submit tax return including, applying for a loan of more than five lakh Taka, purchasing savings bonds of more than Tk 5 lakh, taking a credit card, becoming a director or shareholder of a company, membership of a business association, arms license, obtaining an Import-Export Registration Certificate, obtaining a trade license from a city corporation or municipality, to register cooperative societies etc.
The newly included services are buying non-judicial stamps, getting deed writer’s license, opening bank account for trust, foundation, NGO, and micro credit organisation, selling or leasing land valued over Tk 10 lakh in a municipality area, getting land , flat and building lease registration.
There are around 86 lakh individual TIN holders in the country, but only 32 lakh of them submit tax returns.
Regarding the issue, officials of Ministry of Finance said that government trying to promote a kind of discipline as many people and organization are not submitting their tax returns. The culture should be changed as we have one of the lowest Tax-GDP ratio among nations.
Gradually we are trying to shift our dependence on VAT to collect revenue. Like other countries, we are aiming to collect more tax from individual income, they added.
Earlier, the government is considering a minimum Tk 2,000 tax on individuals who will file tax returns even if they do not have taxable income.
Meanwhile, the tax-to-GDP ratio of Bangladesh is 7.5 per cent, lowest among all the countries in the world, which may fall short on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lending condition regarding domestic revenue mobilisation.
As per IMF’s conditions on disbursement of $4.7billion credit support, the revenue board will have to increase its tax-GDP ratio by 0.5 per cent in each of FY24 and FY25 and 0.7 per cent in FY26.
