CHITTAGONG, Dec 17: Municipal tax collection of Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) has been hit hard, as a large amount of its revenue has been lying unpaid with different government and semi-government offices in the port-city for years.
Facing severe fund constraint in providing its service to the citizens, CCC has sought cooperation from the ministries concerned of the tax defaulter government agencies, requesting them to help realize the outstanding dues by providing fund allocation.
Despite repeated requests from the CCC revenue department for clearing outstanding holding tax and municipal tax, the agencies concerned are not paying the due tax on the ground of non-sanction of required fund from their respective ministries.
CCC Mayor A J M Nasir Uddin wrote letters to 31 ministers on Thursday, while its Chief Executive Officer (additional secretary) Md Shamsuddoha wrote letters to the secretaries of the same ministries.
The CCC mayor and the CEO requested them to take necessary steps regarding budget allocation for the agencies under their ministries to pay the due revenue.
The CCC CEO in his letter said a total of over Tk 3.47 billion holding tax has been unpaid. The outstanding amount with 2,281 government establishments under the ministries is over Tk 1.42 billion after paying over Tk 0.50 billion in 2016-17.
The CCC mayor also informed the Local Government Division Secretary last week about the huge amount of unpaid holding tax.
As per the updated list of the municipal tax defaulters, Tk 860 million has been outstanding with Bangladesh Railway (East), which has not been paying the holding tax since 1994-95.
The CCC mayor wrote the first letter to Railways Minister Md Mujibul Haque on November 30 and the second letter on December 14.
Other major defaulters, which owe holding tax to CCC, are - Ministry of Housing and Public Works (Tk 152.5 million), Ministry of Industries (Tk 121.1 million), Ministry of Primary and Mass Education (Tk 41.5 million), Ministry of Defence (Tk 51.4 million), and Ministry of Education (Tk 28.3 million).
A senior CCC official said its revenue department co-ordination committee had thorough discussions to expedite revenue collection in a meeting on December 10.
CCC is considering taking different actions in this regard, like - attachment of properties of the tax defaulting departments.
It has also decided to coordinate with other service providers in Chittagong, including Bangladesh Power Development Board, Water Supply and Sewerage Authority, and Karnaphuli Gas Distribution Company Limited, to restrict providing service connection lines to the tax defaulters.
In the meeting the CCC mayor said the consumers will be barred from getting new water, electricity and gas connections with the help of the service provider agencies, if they are municipal tax defaulters.
A co-ordination meeting with three service providers is likely to be held earlier next month. The agencies will need NOC (no-objection certificate) from CCC before giving connections, the revenue department officials said.
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