The National Board of Revenue (NBR) will launch a countrywide programme from July 1 to encourage people having taxable income for payment of tax.
People having small but taxable earning at Thana level will be brought under the motivational programme to increase tax-base in the next fiscal.
The revenue board chief is scheduled to visit Kaliakoir under Dhaka district on July 1 and Hathazari under Chittagong on July 3.
The revenue board will try to increase tax net with those who are willing to pay tax but not familiar with the procedure, said NBR chairman Muhammad Abdul Mazid.
Currently, around 2.2 million TIN (Taxpayers' Identification Number) holders are in the tax-net, which might rise to 2.7 million in the current fiscal due to some measures taken by the revenue board.
The revenue board is largely dependent on big taxpayers and there always remains a concern of downslide in revenue earning if their financial condition deteriorate, NBR chairman said.
Officials said as the government has set a large revenue earning target for the next fiscal, the revenue board has planned to gear up revenue earning efforts from the beginning of the upcoming fiscal.
Fearing a fall in income tax collection in the upcoming fiscal, the NBR has set the growth of collection from income tax department lower at 24 per cent despite a robust 35 per cent in the current fiscal.
The revenue board officials said the sluggish trend of economy in the current fiscal might have an adverse effect in revenue earning in 2008-09, although the government has set an ambitious Tk 545 billion revenue collection target for NBR.
The revenue board has taken some measures to increase tax-revenue including offering opportunity to disclose undeclared income with the payment of 7.0 per cent penalty in addition to normal tax-rate.
Last year, the NBR under the same measure mopped up Tk 8.02 billion revenue, but in the current fiscal it is only Tk 3.0 billion from the undisclosed income holders.
The government has extended the opportunity, but the source of the declared amount should be declared in the tax return. The taxpayer will also have to give explanation on why he/she failed to declare his/her income in due time.
There will no scope for whitening of black money earned through illegal means under this offer, only lawfully earned income will get the opportunity to come in formal channel, NBR insiders said.
Encouraged by the robust collection growth of income tax, the government set the target for upcoming fiscal.
This year, the revenue board for the first time in its history froze some bank accounts of large tax evaders causing panic among the other big tax evaders, they added.
It is easy to take such action by a non-political government, which might not be possible in the upcoming fiscal, when a new elected government will be installed, they said.
