NBR moves to strike off fake TIN holders

The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has decided to clean existing TIN (taxpayers' identification number) data-base from mid-May, abolishing fake and inactive taxpayers' registration numbers in a bid to have an actual data of taxpayers. The wide mismatch between actual taxpayers and TIN holders prompted the government to take this step as part of the digitalisation programme of the revenue administration. The number of TIN has increased to 3.0 million recently with the surge of issuance of the number as the government has made the TIN mandatory for obtaining different services. Officials said on an average a total of 16,000 TIN is being issued per month to the people. The NBR officials said they cannot verify the furnished information in the TIN application form as they have to issue the TIN within 24 hours after submission of the applications. Bangladesh Investment Climate Fund (BICF), managed by International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private sector arm of the World Bank (WB), has pledged to provide technical assistance on cleaning the TIN data-base.