Individual taxpayers will get refund of their money paid in excess of their due tax directly into their bank accounts under a new income-tax law in the making to replace outmoded ones.
Chairman of the National Board of Revenue Abu Hena Md. Rahmatul Muneem disclosed the fiscal measure Sunday, saying that the draft Income Tax Law 2022 will be placed before the cabinet by December next.
Domestic transfer pricing, amortisation of pre-commencement expenditures of a business, Earning Striping Rules (ESR) provision with de-minimis threshold are new provisions of the law, meant for enhancing tax potential.
In a press briefing over the draft of the law being made replacing the decades-old Income Tax Ordinance 1984, he said they would also hold stakeholder consultations before placing it with the cabinet.
He said the Income Tax Ordinance 1984 was directly adopted after bringing a little change in the century-old Income Tax Act 1922.
Over the decades, he said, the pattern of business, calculation of the accounting, the method of measuring income and revenue management has seen a sea change.
"We also found many ambiguities in the old ordinance. So, we saw there are areas that need changes or update under the current circumstances," he told reporters.
The draft has been prepared in Bangla to make the law very simple and flexible to everyone. "It will be a taxpayer-friendly one with updated provisions for global business practices."
Talking about the changes, NBR member (tax policy) Md. Alamgir Hossain said the draft law has been classified into 28 parts and six schedules, and taxpayers do not need to visit the whole law as they tried to keep information of a particular matter in a particular section.
Taking global best practices and business-friendly climate into consideration, he said, the provision of e-Tax Management has been proposed in the drafted law.
"We made the draft public on our website. People can give their feedback or suggestions to us. We also hope we will get more logical suggestions in the coming stakeholder consultations that will be incorporated into the draft later," he added.
Responding to a question, the NBR chairman said the new law will have provision to bring global tech giants like facebook, Google and Microsoft under the corporate-tax coverage.
According to the NBR briefing, the new law proposes to cut discretionary powers of the taxmen to ensure a taxpayer-friendly environment.
For the audit of the tax returns, taxmen would have to follow an audit manual instead of arbitrary selection of tax files, according to the briefing.
In the existing law, there is no provision for amortising the pre-commencement expenditures of a business. The draft has incorporated the provision.
The process of drafting a new income-tax law took more than a decade despite repeated instructions by government high-ups to hurry up as the taxing and revenue-collection processes as well as services to the taxpayers in return remained subject to questions.
The latest development with the revenue board comes in line with a verdict given by the Supreme Court nullifying the ordinance along with 166 other laws framed during the military regimes.
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