Bank clients, car owners prime NBR targets

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Doulot Akter Mala
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) is contemplating to request the central bank to ensure that the banks seek 'income tax-payment certificates' instead of TINs from their clients.
The NBR move is being planned in the backdrop of detection of a substantial number of fake taxpayers identification numbers (TINs).
"I am planning to discuss with the Bangladesh Bank (BB) governor on the introduction of income tax certificates instead of TINs to identify the actual taxpayers," NBR chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid told the FE.
The number of TIN holders has gone down from 2.2 million to nearly 2.0 million, he said.
This year, the revenue board has launched a massive campaign to increase the number of taxpayers and simultaneously cancel the fake TINs.
Although there were 2.2 million TIN holders only 0.6 million people paid taxes to the national exchequer.
It is widely alleged that a number of people use fake TINs only for limited purposes including banking activities or for registration of cars. As the government has simplified the procedures of obtaining TINs within 24 hours, it is hard for the revenue officials to check the details before issuance of the same.
"The revenue board is adopting some strategy to check the abuse of the simplified procedure. We will go case by case to identify big tax evaders," said Mr. Mazid.
The revenue board has taken some move to find out the actual taxpayers.
On the first step, it has moved to introduce tax payment stickers for car owners.
The taxpayers will have to take a car sticker from concerned tax office every year after payment of their annual income tax.
"A person, who can afford a car must be a taxpayer. The owner will have to display the token like Bangladesh Road and Transport Authority (BRTA) stickers in front of the car as a symbol of regular tax payment," said the NBR Chairman.
Officials said the NBR has already sought list of car owners from the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA).
Some taxpayers do not show the car in their income tax file for evading actual taxes, he added.
The NBR will launch surprise drives following the number plates of luxury cars to find out that owners of those cars are paying taxes regularly, he said.
Every car owner has to obtain a token from BRTA at the time of registration of their cars.
The NBR will request all the car owners to take a sticker like that from the respective tax offices so that the tax officials could easily understand that person is a regular taxpayer, he said.
"We will not create any nuisance in public. It will be clarified through the sticker that the particular car owner is a taxpayer," he said.
Talking to the FE, Bangladesh Reconditioned Vehicles Importers and Dealers Association (BARVIDA) president Abdul Huq said: "The NBR will have to be careful that private car users do not get panicked by the move."
He said: "All private car owners have TINs. So the revenue officials could verify TIN to identify taxpayers."
Already the duty on imported cars is high he said adding that indirectly the car owners have been paying the taxes when they are purchasing car, he said.