NBR fails to take advantage of rising GDP growth
Al Amin :
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is failing to take advantage of the rising Gross Domestic Production (GDP) growth due to manpower shortage and lack of logistic support.
According to Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) data, the size of GDP increased to Tk 32.18 lakh crore at the moment from Tk 7.74 lakh crore in fiscal year 2013-14.
On the other hand, the revenue collection increased to around Tk 3.25 lakh crore from Tk 1.85 lakh crore in the last 10 year, according to the NBR data.
Experts said the NBR should emphasize direct tax to boost revenue collection as many taxable persons are still out of tax net.
In this case, it should develop a roadmap and action plan of policy measures to achieve the new direct taxation target and broadening the income tax net and making it consistent with the economy’s growth performance to be reflected in the number of taxpayers, they said.
NBR officials said manpower shortage, insufficient logistic support and lack of taxpaying culture among the people are mainly reasons for failing to take privilege from the rising GDP growth.
However, the NBR has various plans for increasing revenue collection by expanding the tax net. Of the plans, increasing tax net by using intra-institutional information, increase in register firms, who deduct tax at source, with E-TDS system, increase in monitoring, identification of new taxpayers and introduction of Tax Return Preparers (TRP) scheme, introduction online return submission, acceleration in NBR’s automation activities and introduction of taxpayer service to prevent tax evasion will play vital role in raising revenue collection, the officials said.
In addition, initiative has been taken to register 50 per cent of source tax deducting firms with the e-TDS system by 2025, to increase tax collection from cross-border trades
and prevent tax evasion by strengthening the capacity of transfer pricing cells, they added.
Dr Abdur Razzaque, Chairman of Research and Policy Integration for Development (RAPID), told The New Nation, “NBR should emphasize increase in direct tax collection by broadening tax net and strengthen the capacity of it.”
“It also should review and rationalize tax exemptions and incentives, introduce an automated and centralized audit system to encourage the taxpayers and boost their confidence, increase the non-taxable income floor and the highest personal income tax net,” he said.
Besides, deduction calculable tax obligations at the source, rationalization of corporate tax rates and notifications to the registered taxpayers to submit tax returns are the major recommendations of him.
