The National Board of Revenue (NBR) has started collecting information of illegal foreign nationals staying in Bangladesh in a bid to check tax evasion.
The tax authority has launched a move to find out whether the foreigners are paying income tax or have permission to work in the country, officials said.
As part of the move the board has recently sent letters to different organisations, including the Board of Investment, the Bureau of Non-Government Organisa-tion, the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA), and the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), seeking information of the illegal foreign nationals.
Monalisa Shahreen Sushmita, second secretary of taxes, legal and enforcement wing of NBR, has sought information on foreign citizens in Bangladesh from the entities.
"NBR has taken initiatives to strengthen monitoring of the foreign workers without work permit in Bangladesh according to the Finance Act 2016," the letter said.
The revenue board aims to collect tax properly from the foreign workers in the country, it added.
According to the Income Tax Ordinance, foreign citizens in Bangladesh are required to pay 30 per cent tax on their income, and there is no tax-free ceiling for them.
Earlier, the field-level tax offices sent letters to different employers, seeking lists of foreign nationals working in their companies.
There is no official data on how many foreign nationals are currently employed in the country.
Foreign nationals, mainly from India, Pakistan, China and Sri Lanka, and also from some African and Western countries are working in the country's different local companies, export-oriented industries and foreign firms.
Tax officials suspected huge tax evasion by the illegal foreign workers. They said even many legal foreigners evade tax with the help of their employers through showing less income or not registering with the income tax offices.
On an average around 12,000 foreign nationals receive work permits from BoI every year, and a significant number renew their work permits.
Many foreign nationals also work in the export-oriented industries with permission from BEPZA, while some work with different NGOs obtaining permission from the NGO Affairs Bureau.
In the budget for 2015-16, the government has restricted employment of foreigners without work permit, and also slapped heavy penalty and imprisonment on employers for violation of the law.
Tax officials can impose penalty on companies and owners as much as 50 per cent of their total payable income tax, or Tk 0.5 million, and scrap all other tax benefits as fine for recruiting unauthorised foreign nationals.
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