The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has sought formation of more benches in the High Court (HC) to exclusively handle tax-related cases.
The revenue board made the proposal to the chief justice recently.
The board also urged the chief justice to allocate sufficient manpower and logistics in the HC to facilitate resolution of the cases of the National Board of Revenue (NBR).
Currently, only one HC bench hears the cases involving income tax, Value Added Tax (VAT) and customs duty disputes.
Officials said there are six dedicated benches in the HC that resolve overall revenue-related cases.
The revenue board officials said there is a need for a few more separate and fully dedicated benches for dealing with the cases of three wings of the NBR.
They said as around 85 per cent of the government's internal revenue comes from the NBR sources, the HC should have some 'dedicated' benches to recover huge outstanding revenue stuck up in court cases. Currently, some Tk 309.46 billion tax revenue remained stuck in around 24,572 court cases that taxpayers lodged in the HC challenging the taxmen's decisions.
Of the total, the highest 17,470 cases are related to customs duty followed by 3,876 involving income tax and 3,226 VAT.
The amount is around 17.55 per cent of the country's revenues target in the current fiscal.
Inadequate number of dedicated benches in the HC have made the tax-related case resolution process slow although the number of cases and volume of stuck- up revenue are increasing fast.
Talking to the FE, a senior official of the NBR said at least 10 dedicated benches in the HC are needed to expedite the process of resolving the long pending cases.
"We have also sought a separate cell comprising tax experts for the NBR in the Attorney General's Office and the Registrar's Office for ensuring better communication and coordination between the taxmen and legal officials," he said.
Meanwhile, the NBR has formed legal solution groups at its field-level tax offices and assigned officials as focal points to supervise and monitor the tax-related cases.
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