Drive to track tax evading houseowners

Md Mahabub Alam :

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is likely to begin operation to track tax evading houseowners, official sources said.
Houses in the municipalities, upazilas and cities will come under it.
NBR is forming special teams with high-ranking officials from its all regional offices and head office.
To make the drive successful, it has already summoned an emergency meeting at its head office in the city on March 2. All the senior officers have been asked to attend in the meeting.
The Central Intelligence Cell (CIC) of NBR held an inquiry in the city and elsewhere. It has found that the large number of houseowners do not pay tax though they earn tax payable income. Their numbers will be 1.50 lakh.
Besides, it detected hundreds of houseowners without Tax Identification Number (TIN).
An official of NBR seeking anonymity told The New Nation yesterday that they would conduct this time combing operation for identifying the home tax evaders.
He said, NBR’s Chairman Golam Hossain would direct the special team members how to track those who are evading tax and have no TIN number.
The Chairman will also discuss about the process of tax collection to reduce the shortfall for 2013-14 Fiscal Year (FY). Last year, NBR collected tax from 57,564 houseowners out of 2,57,000.