Tax officials across the country have been directed to dig out reasons why the ratio of collected taxes was low compared to the number of returns submitted by the deadline by individual taxpayers.
Official sources said the instructions came after the income-tax wing of the National Board of Revenue (NBR) compared the statistics of the past tax year under consideration to that of the previous year.
The tally fell some Tk 2.0 billion short in revenue collection from both individual and corporate taxpayers till the deadline. Â
However, the cut-off time for individual taxpayers was November 30, 2014 for the FY while it was December 30 in the previous year.
A senior tax official said the large taxpayers unit (LTU) faced the major shortfall in tax collection as the deadline for tax-return submission for most of the corporate taxpayers, especially commercial banks, is usually December 30 every year which was advanced this time around.
He attributed the shortfall to comparison of tax returns for July-November 2014 to July-December 2013 period.
"The NBR compared tax collection and tax return-submission status between two deadlines to strengthen its monitoring on tax collection," he said.
The income-tax inspection and coordination wing of the board has asked officials to scrutinise some 100 tax returns submitted by the deadline to find out reasons of shortfall in income-tax collection in this period.
It instructed field-level tax officials to explain the reasons within the shortest possible time.
NBR data show some 835,000 individual taxpayers submitted their tax returns by November 30, 2014. The number was 671,520 in the corresponding period last year.
Also, nearly 200,000 individual taxpayers submitted time petitions for submission of their respective tax returns as the deadline expired on November 30, this year.
The wing had received 1.0 million (10,01559) tax returns from individual and corporate taxpayers combined until November 30, 2014.
Last year, the number of tax returns was 975,283 from individual and corporate taxpayers in that period.
Taxpayers, both individual and corporate, who have obtained online taxpayer identification number, known as e-TIN, would also be brought under the scanner.
Taxmen would monitor how many of the e-TIN holders who obtained the registration within June 20, 2014 submitted tax returns while how many sought additional time.
The income-tax wing instructed the taxmen to take punitive measure against the taxpayers who obtained e-TIN within June 30 last but did not submit returns or apply for additional time.
According to the NBR data, some 1.3 million taxpayers had obtained e-TIN until June 30, 2014. Of them, some 300,000 are new taxpayers who are supposed to submit tax returns for the current FY.
doulot_akter@yahoo.com
NBR pits taxmen against delinquents as IT collection drops by Tk 2.0 billion
Doulot Akter Mala | Published: December 18, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2024 06:01:00
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