NBR moves to scrutinise tax files of polls aspirants

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Doulot Akter Mala
The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has taken an early move to scrutinise tax files of the upcoming national and Upazila election nomination seekers, so that it can provide information instantly to the Election Commission (EC).
The board has started the groundwork to give detailed information about their income, expenditure and tax payment status to the EC or any other government agency.
The NBR has already directed all its tax offices across the country to provide tax-related information as per list of the prospective election candidates. The board will store the data centrally for providing those to the EC.
Usually, the NBR starts this work after completion of election procedures when the EC requests the authority to provide tax clearance information. But this year the NBR has taken the step simultaneously with the government's preparation for election.
In line with the request of the EC, the board is preparing itself for providing tax-related information to the EC or any other government agency within the shortest possible time, said NBR Chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid.
"It is a part of the ongoing move to expand the tax net by going through the tax files of prospective election candidates," the NBR chief said.
The NBR is collecting lists of those prospective election candidates from different sources.
"We are also receiving some complaints on tax evasion from different people as well as election candidates against their opponent and prospective candidates. The board is also addressing those complaints with due priority," he said.
It is a regular job of the NBR to provide tax-related information to the EC on the elected candidates. Two major parties, BNP and Awami League, have started selling nomination papers to their candidates in the national polls.
The NBR is also taking a move to issue notices to taxpayers, who failed to file their income tax returns by the November 12 deadline, and impose penalty on them.
A total of 24,166 individual taxpayers have submitted applications seeking more time for submitting tax returns. Apart from those taxpayers, the board will issue notices to all of those others, who paid tax last year but remained missing this year.
The NBR has received a total of Tk 8.0 billion in tax against 670 thousand individual tax returns in the current tax year. A total of Tk 7.39 biilion was received last year against 640 thousand tax returns.
The NBR has received higher tax returns this year than in last year thanks to the on-going campaign for motivating new taxpayers, though a number of taxpayers were dropped from the list due to raising of the tax-exemption ceiling.