The National Board of Revenue (NBR) instructed taxmen Tuesday to deposit the income-tax receipts with the public exchequer within 24 hours of collection of the same from the taxpayers.
In the strict directive the tax authority, however, kept an option for taxmen to deposit the pay orders, account-payee cheques and demand drafts on income tax within a "shortest possible time on showing valid reasons".
The NBR issued the instructions to the income-tax commissioners across the country to ensure timely deposit of the income-tax amounts with government treasury.
Officials said the move came following a recent decision of government's Cash-Debt Management Committee (CDMC). The committee in its 34th meeting decided to request the NBR to issue an instruction to this effect.
The CDMC also asked the NBR to explore the possibility of reintroducing treasury chalan on mandatory basis instead of pay orders to bring consistencies in monthly revenue-collection data with other entities.
The revenue board was requested to submit a report in its next meeting on this matter.
Talking to the FE Tuesday, a senior tax official said the government wants to expedite the process of depositing taxes with the public exchequer.
"There was an order to deposit pay orders, demand drafts or account-payee cheques within seven days. The order has been issued in a bid to speed up the process," he said.
The gap in the revenue statistics between the tax offices and the office of controller-general of accounts (CGA) will be reduced with the timely deposit of the taxpayers' money, he added.
The mismatch between CGA and NBR accounts is widening fast. It increased to nearly five times over a period of four years ending last financial year.
In the financial year 2014-15, the CGA office found a gaping hiatus amounting to Tk 137 billion compared to Tk 29.23 billion in 2010-11.
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